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AMERICAN DUCK SHOOTING. 



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AMERICAN 
DVCK^ 
SHOOTING 

Sj^ George Bird Grinnell 

^yiuihor of PAWNEE HERO STORIES 
a.nd FOLK-TALES ^ BLACKFOOT 
LODGE TALES 9 THE STORY OF THE 
INDI AN ? THE INDIANS OF TODAY, etc. 

With Fifty-eight Portraits of J^orlh 
American .^tvan^. Geese and "DucK-f by 
EDW^IN SHEPPARD 

a-nd nximerous Vignettes in the text by 
WILMOT TOWNSEND 




HEW YORK 
Forest and Stream Publishing Compa.ny 






Copyright, iqoi, by 
FOREST AND STREAM PUBLISHING CO. 



THE LIBRARY OP 

CONGRESS, 
One Copy RecEtvED 

DEC, 19 1901 

CnPVRIQHT ENTRY 

f^■■^4:: i 0-/^6 f 

CLASS O^XXc. No. 

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COPY g. 



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WM. G. HEWITT. PRINTER. 24 AND 26 VANDEWATER ST., NEW YORK. 



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PREFACE. 




HIS VOLUME DEALS WITH 
duck shooting, past as well as 
present, and li'itli the different 
ivays i)i which the sport has been 
and is practiced. It tells of an 
abundance of foiul in the land, 
not to be seen to-day, nor perhaps ever again. It 
contains accounts of shooting, often by iin^vise 
methods, often to unnecessary excess; of shooting 
zvhich has reduced the multitudes of our fowl from what 
they were to zvhat they are. "Such accounts may zvell 
serve as zi'arnings to us, teaching t(s nozu the exercise of 
a moderation zve were too thoughtless to deem necessary 
in the old days. 

Since the several methods of duck sJwoting necessarily 
grade into one anotJur, there zvill often be in one ac- 
count repetition of zvhat has been said in another. This 
seems inevitable, however, if a clear idea is to be given 
of each variety of the sport. 



4 PREFACE. 

In tJic accuracy of the descriptions of the different 
species of wildfowl every confidence is felt, for they have 
passed under the eye of Mr. Robert Ridgway, the former 
President of the American Ornithological Union, ivhose 
eminejice in his chosen field of life work is so zvell 
known. I oive him cordial thanks for his kindness in 
this matter, as well as for various suggestions, looking 
toward making more complete the technical portion of 
the book. 

The book covers — as it should — a wide range of terri- 
tory; for a volume on ivildfozvl shooting, if limited to 
the experiences of a single individual, would furnish 
but an inadequate presentation of the subject for the 
whole continent. In the endeavor to make the volume 
justify its title, assistance has been asked from gun- 
7iers ivhose experience has been longer than mine, or has 
extended over shooting grounds with which I am not 
familiar. 

My friends, Messrs Wm. Trotter and C . R. Purdy, 
both duck shooters of long experience, have kindly aided 
me on different points, and my acknowledgments are 
due to them. 

The portraits of zvildfowl by Mr. Edwin Sheppard, 



PREFACE. 5 

so tvcll known as the illustrator of Baird, Brewer & 
Ridgzvay s great work and of Mr. Elliot's trilogy of 
game bird volumes, speak for themselves. 

The pen sketches drawn by Mr. Wilmot Toivnsend 
hardly need be commented on. Mr. Townsend is an en- 
thusiastic gunner and has devoted much time to study- 
ing wildfowl in their homes. The draivings which he 
has made will call up to every giuiner of experience 
memories of a happy past. 

Mr. William Brexvstcr has kindly permitted me to 
use the photographs illustrating the nesting of the 
Golden Eye, zvhich accompanied his interestijig paper on 
the subject in the Auk. 

The very useful chart of the duck, in the back of the 
book, is taken by the kind permission of the autJior from 
Mr. Charles B. Cory s Birds of Eastern NortJi America 
— Water Birds. G. B. G. 

October, igoi. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Preface ■. . 3 



PART I. 



THE DUCK FAMILY. 

SWANS 33 

American Swan 34 

Trumpeter Swan 36 



GEESE AND BRANT 39 

Blue Goose 43 

Lesser Snow Goose 46 

Greater Snow Goose 48 

Ross's Goose 51 

White-fronted Goose 53 

Canada Goose 56 

HuTCHiNs's Goose 58 

Western Goose 58 

Cackling Goose 59 

Barnacle Goose 65 

Brant 67 

Black Brant 69 

Emperor Goose 72 

7 



8 CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

TREE DUCKS 75 

Black-bellied Tree Duck 76 

Fulvous-bellied Tree Duck 79 



THE TRUE DUCKS. 

NON-DIVING DUCKS 85 

L Mallard 87 

Black Duck or Dusky Duck 93 

Florida Dusky Duck 95 

Mottled Duck 97 

Gadwall 103 

European Widgeon 107 

American Widgeon. Bald-pate no 

European Teal 116 

Green-winged Teai 118 

Blue-winged Teal 122 

Cinnamon Teal 126 

Shoveller 131 

Pintail 134 

Wood Duck 139 

DIVING DUCKS 143 

Rufous-crested Duck 145 

Canvas-dack Duck 147 

Redhead Duck 160 

Broad-bill 164 

Little Black-head 167 

Ring-necked Duck 170 

Golden-eye. Whistler 173 

Barrow's Golden-eye 178 

Buffle-head Duck 181 

Old-squaw, Long-tailed Duck 185 

Harlequin Duck 189 

Labrador Duck 192 



CONTENTS. 9 

PAGE 

Steller's Duck 195 

Spectacled Eider 197 

Common Eider 200 

American Eider 202 

Pacific Eider 205 

King Eider 208 

American Scoter 211 

American Velvet Scoter 213 

Velvet Scoter 216 

Surf Scoter, Skunk-head 217 

Ruddy Duck 220 

Masked Duck 223 



FISH DUCKS 225 

American Merganser 226 

Red-breasted Merganser, Sheldrake 230 

Hooded Merganser 234 



PART II. 



WILDFOWL SHOOTING. 

SWAN SHOOTING 244 

GOOSE SHOOTING 250 

On the Stubbles 251 

On the Sand-bars 254 

With Live Decoys 260 

Driving 274 

BRANT SHOOTING 279 

From a Battery 279 

Bar Shooting 294 



10 CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

DUCK SHOOTING 3i7 

Pass Shooting 31? 

Shooting in the Overflow 333 

River Shooting 335 

In the Wild Rice Fields 351 

Cornfield Shooting in the Middle West 371 

Point Shooting i77 

Sea Shooting on the Atlantic 418 

Wading the Marshes '. 430 

Battery Shooting 433 

Shooting from a House-boat 440 

Ice Hole Shooting 447 

Winter Duck Shooting on Lake Ontario 453 

Shooting in the Ice 455 

Sailing 460 

Stubble Shooting 461 

California Marsh Shooting 464 

Chesapeake Bay Duck Shooting 472 



PART III. 



THE ART OF DUCK SHOOTING. 

GUNS AND LOADING 493 

How TO Hold 502 

When to Shoot 506 

Flight of Ducks 508 

Etiquette of the Blind 510 

CHESAPEAKE BAY DOG 515 

DECOYS 522 

Wooden Decoys 522 

Live Decoys 526 

Breeding Wildfowl 532 



CONTENTS. 



II 



PAGE 

BLINDS. BATTERIES AND BOATS 546 

How Blinds are Made 546 

The Battery 549 

Skiffs and Sneak Boats 557 

Other Craft 573 

Ice Work 572 



THE DECREASE OF WILDFOWL. 

CAUSES 58^ 

Spring Shooting 589 

Contraction of Feeding Grounds 593 

Size of Bags 594 

Natural Enemies 596 

Lead Poisoning 598 

Self-denial Needed 603 

Batteries and Bush Blinds 605 

Night Shooting 607 

What Shall be Done?. ,.„ 608 




^ 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



FULL-PAGE PLATES. 

PAGE 

The Canvas-back .... Frontispiece 

From Audubon's "Birds of America\" 

The Black Duck . . . . . .63 

From Audubon's "Birds of America." 

The Shoveller . . . . • • 127 

From Audubon's "Birds of America." 

The Redhead . . . . . . ■ iQi 

From Audtibon's "Birds of America." 

A Golden-eye Nesting Place . . . . . . 255 

Photographed by Wm. Brewster. 

"A Bird in the Hand" ...... 3^9 

Photographed by Wm. Brewster. 

A Prairie Shooting Wagon . . . . . . 509 

Indians Gathering Duck Eggs in Alaska . . . 578 

13 



14 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 

PORTRAITS OF SPECIES. 

PAGE 

American Swan 34 

Trumpeter Swan 36 

Blue Goose 43 

Lesser Snow Goose 46 

Greater Snow Goose 48 

Ross's Goose 51 

White-fronted Goose 53 

Canada Goose 56 

Hutchins's Goose 57 

White-cheeked Goose 57 

Cackling Goose 59 

Barnacle Goose 65 

Brant 67 

Black Brant 69 

Emperor Goose 72 

Black-bellied Tree Duck 76 

Fulvous-bellied Tree Duck 79 

Mallard 87 

Black Duck or Dusky Duck 92 

Florida Dusky Duck 95 

^loTTLED Duck 97 

Gadwall 103 

European Widgeon 107 

American Widgeon, Bald-pate no 

European Teal 116 

Green-winged Teal 118 

Blue-winged Teal 122 

Cinnamon Teal 126 

Shoveller 131 

Pintail 134 

Wood Duck 139 

Rufous-crested Duck 145 

Canvas-back Duck 137 

Redhead Duck 160 

Broad-bill "" 164 

Little Black-head 167 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 15 

PAGE 

Ring-necked Duck 170 

Golden-eye, Whistler 173 

Barrow's Golden-eye 178 

BUFFLE-HEAD DuCK l8l 

Old-squaw, Long-tailed Duck 185 

Harlequin Duck 189 

Labrador Duck 192 

Steller's Duck 195 

Spectacled Eider 197 

Common Eider 200 

American Eider 202 

Pacific Eider 205 

King Eider 208 

American Scoter 211 

American Velvet Scoter 213 

Velvet Scoter 216 

Surf Scoter, Skunk-head 217 

Ruddy Duck 220 

Masked Duck 223 

American Merganser 226 

Red-breasted Merganser, Sheldrake 230 

Hooded Merganser 234 



GENERAL ILLUSTRATIONS. 

Goose Decoys on a Bar 281 

The Battery Rigged. Facing page 434 

Swivel Guns from Spesutia Island, Facing page 435 

Plan of Single Battery 551 

Plan of Double Battery 5:^3 

Sneak Boat 558 

Nee-pe-nauk Boat 560 

LoYD Boat 561 

Sassafras Dug-out ^62 

Mexican Cypress Pirogue ^g^ 



16 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



PACE 

Wolf River Canoe 563 

Bob Stanley Boat 564 

Senachwine Iron Skiff 565 

Hennepin Duck Boat 566 

Monitor Marsh Boat 567 

De Pere Red Cedar Boat 567 

Mississippi Scull Boat 568 

Koshkonong Flat Boat 569 

koshkonong monitor 569 

ToLLESTON Boat 570 

North Canoe 571 

Fifty I'igitcttcs in Text. 
Chart of Duck Bound in ivith Back Cover. 




^-vv-^ 



PART I. 



THE DUCK FAMILY. 




THE DUCK FAMILY. 



No group of birds is more important to man than 
that known as the duck family. They are called the 
Anafidcu, from the Latin word Ajtas, a duck ; and be- 
long to the Order Anscrcs, or Lamellirostral Swim- 
mers, — birds whose bills are provided with lamelkne, by 
which are meant the little transverse ridges found on 
the margins of the bills of most ducks. Sometimes the 
lamellae appear like a row of white blunt teeth ; in the 
shoveller, they constitute a fine comb-like structure, 
which acts as a strainer, while in the case of the mer- 
gansers they have the appearance of being real teeth, 
which, however, they are not, since teeth are always 
implanted in sockets in the bone of the jaw ; and this is 
true of no known birds, except some Cretaceous forms 
of Western America and the Jurassic Arch<ropteryx. 

The bill is variously shaped in the members of the 
duck family. Usually it is broad and depressed, as in 
the domestic duck ; or it may be high at the base and 
approach the conical, as in some geese ; broadly spread, 
or spoon-shaped, as in the shoveller duck, or almost 
cylindrical and hooked at the tip, as in the mergansers 
Whatever its shape, the bill is almost wholly covered 

19 



20 DUCK SHOOTING. 

with a soft, sensitive membrane or skin, and ends at 
the tip in a horny process which is termed the nail. 
From this fact the family is sometimes called Ungui- 
rostrcs, or nail-beaked. 

The body is short and stout, the neck usually long; 
the feet and legs are short. The wings are moderately 
long and stout, giving power of rapid and long-con- 
tinued flight. There are various anatomical character- 
istics, most of which need not be considered here. 

One of these, however, is common to so many spe- 
cies, and is so frequently inquired about by sportsmen, 
that it may be briefly mentioned. In the male of most 
ducks the windpipe just above the bronchial tubes on 
the left side is expanded to form a bony, bulb- 
ous enlargement, called the labyrinth. Except in one 
or two species the female does not possess this enlarge- 
ment, and there are some of the sea ducks (Fitli- 
gulincc) in which it is not found. The labyrinth 
varies greatly in dififerent species. In some it is round 
and comparatively simple, in others large and in- 
stead of being more or less cylindrical in shape it has 
the form of a long three-cornered box. The labyrinth 
has been stated to have relation to the voice of the bird, 
but what this relation is has yet to be proved. 

In addition to the labyrinth, some species of ducks 
have an enlargement of the windpipe near the throat, 
and the swans have the windpipe curiously coiled with- 
in the breast bone. 

The plumage of these birds is well adapted for pro- 
tection against wet and cold. All possess large oil 



THE DUCK FAMILY. 21 

glands, and the overlying feathers, which are constant- 
ly kept oiled, protect the down beneath them from mois- 
ture and form a covering whose warmth enables the 
birds to endure an Arctic temperature. There is a great 
variety in the coloring of the plumage. The sexes in 
the swans and most geese are alike, but in the ducks the 
male is usually more highly colored than the female. 
The males of some species are among our most beauti- 
ful birds, as the mallard, harlequin, wood duck and the 
odd little mandarin duck of Eastern Asia, while in 
others the colors are duller, and in the female and 
young are often extremely modest and subdued. Most 
of the fresh water ducks possess a patch of brilliant 
iridescent color on the secondary feathers of the wing 
which is usually either green or violet. This is called 
the speculum. A less brilliant speculum is seen in some 
of the sea ducks. 

The males of certain species possess peculiar devel- 
opments of plumage or of bill, such as the curled tail 
feathers of the mallard, the long pointed scapulars and 
long tail feathers of the old squaw and the sprig-tail, 
the peculiar wing feathers of the mandarin duck, the 
stiff feathers on the face in some sea ducks, the crests of 
many species, and the singular processes and swellings 
on the bills of certain sea ducks. 

The Duck family is divided into three sections — the 
Swans, the Geese and the Ducks proper. These last 
again are subdivided into shoal water or river ducks, 
and sea or diving ducks. 

The swans are characterized bv their laro-e size and 



22 DUCK SHOOTING. 

extremely long necks, and are usually white in color, 
although the Australian black swan forms a notable 
exception. The naked skin of the bill extends back to 
the eyes. Only two species — with a European form 
attributed to Greenland — are found in North America. 
One of these, the common swan, covers the whole coun- 
try, while the slightly larger trumpeter swan is found 
chiefly in the West. The swans constitute a sub-family 
of the Anatidcc, and are known to ornithologists as the 
Cyguincc. 

Less in size than the swans and in form intermediate 
between them and the ducks are the geese. They have 
necks much longer than the ducks, yet not so long as 
the swans. Like the swans, they feed by stretching 
down their necks through the water and tearing up 
vegetable food from the bottom. Geese and swans do 
not dive, except to escape the pursuit of enemies. Most 
species are found wathin the limits of the United States 
only in autumn or winter, and breed far to the north, 
although up to the time of the settlement of the west- 
ern country the Canada goose commonly nested on the 
prairies and along the Missouri River, sometimes 
building its nest in trees; that is to say, on the tops of 
broken cottonwood stubs, standing thirty or forty feet 
above the ground. The settling up of the country has, 
for the most part, deprived these birds of their summer 
home, and it may be questioned whether thev now 
breed regularly anywhere wnthin the United States, 
except in the Yellowstone Park, where protection is 
afforded them. 



THE DUCK FAMILY. 23 

With the geese are to be included the tree ducks, a 
group connecting the sub-famihes of the geese and the 
ducks, and known by naturahsts as Dendrocygna. 
They are found only on the southern borders of the 
United States, and thus will but seldom come under the 
notice of North American sportsmen. They are really 
duck-like, tree-inhabiting geese. There are several 
species, occurring chiefly in the tropics. 

The true ducks are divided into three groups, known 
as Anatincc, or shoal- water ducks, FiiligiiUncu, or sea 
ducks, and Mcrgincr, fish ducks, or mergansers. These 
three groups are natural ones, although the birds be- 
longing to them are constantly associated together dur- 
ing the migrations, and often live similar lives. No 
one of the three is confined either to sea coast or in- 
terior, but all are spread out over the whole breadth of 
the continent. In summer the great majority of the 
birds of each group migrate to the farther north, there 
to raise their young, while others still breed sparingly 
within the United States, where formerly they did so 
in great numbers. 

As is indicated by one of their English names, the 
fresh water ducks prefer fresh and shallow water, and 
must have this last because they do not dive for their 
food, but feed on wdiat they can pick up from the bot- 
toms and margins of the rivers and pools which they 
frequent. The sea ducks, on the other hand, are ex- 
pert divers, many of them feeding in water from fif- 
teen to thirty feet deep. The food of the mergansers 
is assumed to consist largely of small fish, which they 



24 DUCK SHOOTING. 

capture by pursuing them under the water. They are 
expert divers. 

The food of the fresh water ducks is chiefly vege- 
table, consisting of seeds, grasses and roots, which they 
gather from the water. That of the sea ducks is 
largely animal, and often consists exclusively of shell- 
fish, which they bring up from the bottom. Yet with 
regard to the food of the two groups there is no in- 
variable rule, and many of the sea ducks live largely 
on vegetable matter, while the fresh water ducks do 
not disdain any animal matter which may come in their 
way. Both groups, with some possible exceptions, are 
fond of grain, which they eat greedily wdien it is ac- 
cessible. The far-famed canvas-back derives its de- 
licious flavor from the vegetable food which it finds in 
the deep, fresh or brackish waters of lakes, slow flow- 
ing streams and estuaries, while the widgeon, which is 
one of the typical fresh water ducks and is equally 
toothsome, feeds only in shoal water. 

The flavor of any duck's flesh depends entirely on its 
food, and a bird of whatever kind which is killed after 
living for a month or two in a region where proper 
vegetable food is to be found will prove delicious eat- 
ing, whether it be canvas-back, redhead, widgeon, 
black duck or broad-bill. On the other hand, a black 
duck, redhead, broad-bill or canvas-back, which had 
spent a month or two in the salt water, where its food 
had been chiefly shell-fish, will be found to have a 
strong flavor of fish. Thus the fine feathers of a can- 
vas-back are not necessarily a guarantee that the bird 



THE DUCK FAMILY. 25 

wearing them possesses the table quahties that have 
made the species famous. 

Hybrids between different species of the fresh water 
ducks occur quite frequently, and many perfectly au- 
thentic examples of this have been examined by com- 
petent authority, although in many instances a sup- 
posed hybrid is nothing more than some species with 
which the gunner is unfamiliar. In his great work, 
"The Birds of North America," Audubon figured a 
hybrid under the name Brewer's duck. Hybrids be- 
tween the mallard and the muscovy, the black duck and 
the pintail are not uncommon. One of the latter, which 
I still possess, I killed in Wyoming, and I have killed 
several black duck mallard hybrids in North Caro- 
lina. Besides these, ducks have been killed which ap- 
pear to indicate a cross between mallard and gadwall, 
between teal and pintail, and even between wood duck 
and redhead. On the other hand, some years ago, 
when my gunner picked up a male English widgeon 
which I had killed, he suggested that it was a hybrid 
between a redhead and a widgeon. 

It is to be noted that the h3dDrids supposed to be a 
cross between the black duck and mallard, while pos- 
sessing the general appearance of the black duck, ap- 
pear to exceed either parent in size, and the males often 
possess the curved tail feathers of the male mallard. 

Ducks and geese are to a great extent nocturnal in 
their habits. Many, if not all of them, migrate by night, 
and in localities where they are greatly disturbed on 
their feeding grounds they are likely to pass the hours 



26 DUCK SHOOTING. 

of day in tlie open water far from the shore and not 
to visit their feeding grounds until evening or even 
dark night. In many places along the New England 
coast it is the practice during cloudy nights, when the 
moon is large, to visit the hills in the line of flight to 
shoot at the ducks and geese which fly over from their 
daily resting place on the salt water to their nightly 
feeding ground in ponds, rivers and shallow bays, or 
before daylight in the morning, to resort to the same 
places, in the hope of getting a shot at the birds as they 
fly back toward the sea. 

During moonlight nights the birds frequently feed 
at intervals all night long, and in many places advan- 
tage is taken of this habit to shoot them either by 
moonlight or by fire lighting. 

Ducks are found all over the world, and appear 
equally at home in the tropics and on the borders of the 
Arctic ice. There are about two hundred known 
species, of which not far from sixty are found in North 
America. Their economic importance is due not 
merely to the fact that they occur in such numbers as 
to furnish a great deal of food for man, but also be- 
cause of the feathers and down which they produce. 
To the inhabitants of many regions they furnish cloth- 
ing, in part, as well as food. In some parts of the 
world, whole communities are largely dependent for 
their living on the products of these birds, subsisting 
for portions of the year entirely on their flesh and eggs, 
and deriving a large part of their revenue from the 
sale of feathers and down. Many examples might be 



THE DUCK FAMILY. 2/ 

cited of places in northern latitudes where the gather- 
ing of eggs, birds or feathers forms at certain seasons 
of the year the principal industry of the people. 

A familiar species, whose economic importance to 
dwellers in high latitudes can hardly be overestimated, 
is the well-known eider duck. This bird is occasionally 
shot on the Long Island coast in winter, and is then a 
common visitor to northern New England. Its slightly 
differing forms breed on the sea-coasts of the northern 
parts of the world, and are very abundant in the Arctic 
regions. 

In Greenland, Iceland and Norway the breeding 
grounds of the eider duck are protected by laws which 
have the universal support of the inhabitants. Indeed, 
these breeding grounds are handed down from father 
to son as property of great value. Every efifort is made 
to foster and encourage the birds. Sometimes cattle 
are removed from islands where they have been rang- 
ing in order that the ducks may breed there undis- 
turbed, and a careful watch is kept against depreda- 
tions by dogs and foxes. According to Dr. Stejneger : 
"The inhabitants [of parts of Norway] take great care 
of the breeding birds, which often enter their houses to 
find suitable nesting places, and cases are authenticated 
in which the poor fisherman vacated his bed in order 
not to disturb the female eider which had selected it as 
a quiet corner wherein to raise her young. In another 
instance the cooking of a family had to be done in a 
temporary kitchen, as a fanciful bird had taken up her 
abode on the fireplace." 



28 DUCK SHOOTING. 

On many of the breeding grounds in Iceland and 
Norway the birds are so tame as to pay Httle attention 
to the approach of strangers. Often the nests occur in 
such numbers that it is difficult to walk among them 
without stepping on them. On the little island of 
Vidoe, near Reikjavik, almost all the hollows among 
the rocks with which the ground is strewn are occupied 
by nests of the birds. Here, too, they occupy burrows 
especially prepared for them, as with the sheldrakes in 
Sylt. 

In Baird, Brewer and Ridgway's "North American 
Birds," Dr. T. M. Brewer quotes Mr. C. W. Shepard, 
who, in a sketch of his travels in northern Iceland, 
gives the following account of the tameness and breed- 
ing there of the eider : 

"The islands of Vigr and Oedey are their headquar- 
ters in the northwest of Iceland. In these they live in 
undisturbed trantjuillity. They have become almost do- 
mesticated, and are found in vast multitudes, as the 
young remain and breed in the place of their birth. 
As the island (Vigr) was approached we could see 
flocks upon flocks of the sacred birds, and could hear 
their cooing at a great distance. W^e landed on a 
rocky, wave-worn shore. It was the most wonderful 
ornithological sight conceivable. The ducks and their 
nests were everywhere. Great brown ducks sat upon 
their nests in masses, and at every step started from 
under our feet. It was with difficulty that we avoided 
treading on some of the nests. On the coast of the 
opposite shore was a wall built of large stones, just 



THE DUCK FAMILY. 2g 

above the high-water level, about three feet in height 
and of considerable thickness. At the bottom, on both 
sides of it, alternate stones had been left out, so as to 
form a series of square compartments for the ducks to 
nest in. Almost every compartment was occupied, and 
as we walked along the shore a long line of ducks flew 
out, one after the other. The surface of the water also 
was perfectly white with drakes, who welcomed their 
brown wives with loud and clamorous cooing. The 
house itself was a marvel. The earthen walls that 
surrounded it and the window embrasures were oc- 
cupied by ducks. On the ground the house was 
fringed with ducks. On the turf slopes of its roof we 
could see ducks, and a duck sat on the door-scraper. 
The grassy banks had been cut into square patches, 
about eighteen inches having been removed, and each 
hollow had been filled with ducks. A windmill was in- 
fested, and so were all the outhouses, mounds, rocks and 
crevices. The ducks were everywhere. Many were so 
tame that we could stroke them on their nests ; and 
the good lady told us that there was scarcely a duck on 
the island that would not allow her to take its eggs 
without flight or fear. Our hostess told us that when 
she first became possessor of the island the produce of 
down from the ducks was not more than fifteen pounds 
in a year ; but that under her careful nurture of twenty 
years it had risen to nearly one hundred pounds an- 
nually. Most of the eggs are taken and pickled for 
winter consumption, one or two only being left in each 
nest to hatch." 



30 DUCK SHOOTING. 

Although breeding in great numbers on the coast of 
Labrador and in other Canadian waters, the eider duck 
is practically not protected there, and indeed is scarcely 
made use of commercially in America. We have not 
yet a(h'anced sufficiently to take advantage of our op- 
portunities. 

Dr. Leonhard Stejneger, in the "Standard Natural 
History," writing of the European sheldrake 
(Tadorna) — which must not be confounded with any 
of the birds (Mergus) which we of the United States 
call sheldrakes — almost parallels Mr. Shepard's ac- 
count, but on a smaller scale.' He says : "The inhabi- 
tants on several of the small sandy islands off the west- 
ern coast of Jutland — notably, the Island of Sylt — have 
made the whole colony of sheldrakes breeding there a 
source of considerable income by judiciously taxing 
the birds for eggs and down, supplying them in return 
with burrows of easy access and protecting them 
against all kinds of injury. The construction of such 
a duck burrow is described by Johann Friedrich Nau- 
mann, who says that all the digging, with the excep- 
tion of the entrance tunnel, is made from above. On 
top of small rounded hills, covered with grass, 
the breeding chambers are first dug out to a uniform 
depth of two or three feet. These are then connected by 
horizontal tunnels and finally with the common en- 
trance. Each breeding chamber is closed above with a 
tightly fitting piece of sod, which can be lifted up like a 
lid when the nest is to be examined and plundered. 
Such a complex burrow may contain from ten to 



THE DUCK FAMILY. 3 1 

twenty nest chambers, but in the latter case there are 
usually two entrances. The birds, which, on account 
of the protection extended to them through ages, are 
quite tame, take very eagerly to the burrows. As soon 
as the female has laid six eggs the egging commences, 
and every one above that number is taken away, a sin- 
gle bird often laying twenty or thirty eggs in a season. 
The birds are so tam.e that, when the lid is opened, the 
female still sits on the nest, not walking off into the 
next room until touched by the egg-gatherer's hand. 
When no more fresh eggs are found in the nest, the 
down composing the latter is also collected, being in 
quality nearly equal to eider down." 

The importance of the wildfowl to the natives of 
northern climes has been indicated, and it is well known 
that in the United States the killing of these birds on 
their migrations and during their winter residence is a 
matter of some commercial moment, giving employ- 
ment to many men and requiring the investment of not 
a little capital. Years ago, when the birds were far 
more numerous than now, isolated posts of the Hud- 
son's Bay Co. in Canada depended for support dur- 
ing a part of the year on the geese that they killed dur- 
ing the migrations and dried or smoked. Gunning for 
the market occupies many men during the winter, and 
the occasional great rewards received for a day's work 
in the blind or the battery lead many to make a serious 
business of it, though it is quite certain that, taking 
the season through, the work will not pay ordinary day's 
wages to the man who guns. Nevertheless, we knew 



32 



DUCK SHOOTING. 



of a g-unner who in January, 1900, killed $130 worth 
of birds in a day, and of another who in February, 
1899, killed $206 worth in one day. It must be remem- 
bered that this gunning is going on during the whole 
winter all over the South every day except Sunday. 
The number of birds killed must be very great and must 
far exceed those hatched and reared each vear. 




SWANS, 

SUB-FAMILY CygllillCB. 

The swans are the largest of our water fowl, and the 
American species measure nearly or quite five feet in 
length. The naked skin of the bill runs back to the 
eye, covering the lores ; the bill is high at the base, but 
broad and flattened toward the tip ; the tarsus is reticu- 
late, and shorter than the middle toe. In our species 
the feathers do not come down to the tibio-tarsal joint. 
The two American species are white in the adult plum- 
age, the immature birds being gray. 

Both species belong to the restricted genus Olor, 
which is distinguished from the true Cygniis by not 
having a tubercle at the base of the bill. Thus in the 
ornithologies, and in the American Ornithologists' 
Union Check List, the generic name is given as Olor, 
but the term Cygnus will answer the purposes of this 
volume. 

Although the two swans are much alike, they may 
readily be distinguished by the characters to be here- 
after given; that is to say, the number of the tail feath- 
ers and the position of the nostril opening in the bill. 

33 




iclv/vi^- S)\eJ 



AMERICAN SWAN. 



Cygnus colninhianus (Ord), 



The common swan is slightly smaller than the 
trumpeter, but is colored like it, except that on the 
naked lores, just before the eye, there is a spot of yel- 
low. This, however, is not invariably present, and is 
usually lacking in the young birds. The tail feathers 
are 20 instead of 24, and this with the fact that the 
nostrils open half way down the bill (instead of being 
in the basal half, as in the trumpeter swan), will al- 
ways serve to distinguish the two. 

The young are gray, with a pink bill, which later 
turns white, and finally black. As the young grow 

34 



AMERICAN SWAN. 35 

older, the body becomes white, then the neck, and last 
of all the head. 

During the autumn, winter and spring this swan 
occurs in greater or less abundance all over the United 
States, occasionally being found as far south as Flor- 
ida. It is rarely seen, however, ofif the New England 
coast. Its breeding grounds are in Alaska, and Dr. 
Dall reported it common all along the Yukon, and says 
that it arrives with the geese about May ist, but ap- 
pears coming down the Yukon instead of up the 
stream. It breeds in the great marshes, near the mouth 
of that river. 

This species is said to be much more common on the 
Pacific than on the Atlantic coast, in winter resorting 
in great numbers to lakes in Washington, Oregon and 
portions of California, where it is often found mingled 
with the trumpeter swan. It is common in winter on 
the South Atlantic coast, being usually abundant in the 
Chesapeake Bay and in Currituck Sound and to the 
southward. Congregating in great flocks, its snowy 
plumage and musical call notes are pleasing features of 
this wide water. Few swans are killed, and the old- 
time gunners declare that swans are as numerous as 
they ever were, or are even increasing. 

The whooping swan of Europe {Cygnns cyguus) is 
supposed to occur in Greenland, and is therefore given 
in the ornithologies as a bird of America. It has not 
been taken on this continent. It is white in color, and 
has the bill black at the tip, with the lores and basal 
portion of the bill yellow. 




TRUMPETER SWAN. 



Cygniis buccinator (Rich.), 



The plumage of the trumpeter swan is white 
throughout ; the naked black skin of the bill extends 
back to the eyes, covering what is called the lores, and 
the bill and feet are wholly black. The tail feathers 
are twenty-four in number, and this character will dis- 
tinguish it from our only other swan, the species just 
mentioned. The bill is longer than the head, and the 
bird measures about five feet in total length. The 
spread of wings is great, sometimes ten feet. Audu- 
bon records a specimen which weighed 38 pounds. 

The young are gray, the head often washed with 

36 



TRUMPETER SWAN. 37 

rusty, but grow whiter as they advance in years. The 
gray of the head and neck is the last to disappear. In 
the young the bill is flesh color at the base, dusky at 
tip ; feet gray. 

The trumpeter swan is a western species, and is 
scarcely found east of the Mississippi River. Formerly 
it bred over much of the western country, though un- 
doubtedly most of the birds repaired to the far North 
to rear their young. Many years ago I found it 
breeding on a little lake in Nebraska, and I have seen it 
in summer on the Yellowstone Lake, in Wyoming. 
The nest is built on the ground, and the eggs are white 
or cream color. 

In agreement with what is known of the trumpeter 
swan in the United States, its breeding grounds in the 
North appear to be inland. Explorers give the Hud- 
son's Bay as one of its resorts, where it is said to be one 
of the earliest migratory birds to arrive. It breeds on 
the islands and in the marshes, and on the shores of 
the fresh water lakes, and is said to lay from five to 
seven eggs. It is stated also that it is monogamous, 
and that the mating is for life. During the period of 
the molt, when the swans are unable to fly, they are 
eagerly pursued by the Indians, not always success- 
fully, since they are able to swim and to flap over the 
water as fast as a canoe can be paddled. The swan 
breeds also in the barren grounds on the head of the 
Eraser River, and at various points on the Mackenzie 
River ; it has been reported also from Norton Sound. 

The note of the trumpeter, from which it takes its 



38 



DUCK SllOOriNG. 



name, is loud and resonant, and so closely resembles 
that of the sandhill crane that it is not always easy to 
distinguish the two apart. Authors connect the great 
power and volume of the trumpeter's voice with the 
curiously convoluted windpipe of the species. The 
young birds are very good eating, while the older ones, 
as a rule, are very tough and hardly edible. 




4e' 



GEESE AND BRANT. 

SUB-FAMILY Auseriucc. 

The geese stand midway between the swans and the 
ducks in size and general appearance, though their ac- 
tual affinities are not these, the swans and ducks being 
more nearly related structurally than is either group to 
the geese. From the swans the geese may be distin- 
guished by their smaller size and shorter neck, by hav- 
ing the lores, or space between the eye and bill, feath- 
ered instead of naked, and the bill proportionately 
shorter, deeper and much less broad, in some forms ap- 
proaching a conical shape. They differ from the ducks in 
their greater size, longer necks and legs, and usually in 
the shape of the bill, which is relatively stouter and less 
broad than in most ducks. An important difference is 
seen also in the tarsus, or naked portion of the leg, 
letween the joint just where the feathers end and 
that below, where the toes spread out. In the geese this 
tarsus is covered with a naked skin, marked with small 
divisions like the meshes of a net, while in the ducks 
the front of the tarsus is covered by overlapping plates 
which are termed scales or scutell^. Thus in the geese 
the tarsus is said to be reticulate; in the ducks it is scu- 
tellate. 

In all our species the sexes are alike, but they are very 

39 



40 DUCK SHOOTING. 

different in some South American and Old World 
species. 

In the sub-family are included the dozen species and 
sub-species of geese found in North America. They 
are divided into four genera, two of which contain a 
single species each, the others several each. One genus 
is almost confined to Alaska, while another has a gen- 
eral distribution in the Northern Hemisphere. The 
snow goose and its forms and the blue goose have a 
wide range, while little is known about that of Ross's 
goose. The dark-colored or gray geese, included in the 
genus Brant a, are very abundant along both coasts of 
the continent, yet are by no means lacking in the in- 
terior. They include the common Canada goose, with 
its forms, and the barnacle and brant geese. The brant 
and its Western relative, the black brant, are chiefly 
maritime in habit, and are seldom found in the interior. 
On the other hand, the snow goose, and some of its 
forms, are regular visitants to certain points on the At- 
lantic coast. A few years ago a flock of these birds was 
always to be found in winter in the mouth of the Dela- 
ware River. Stray birds are sometimes seen on the 
New England coast and on Long Island. On the beach 
which lies outside of Currituck Sound a flock of five 
hundred or a thousand of these birds is found each win- 
ter. 

The gray geese, so called, all have the bills, feet, head 
and neck black. There are patches or touches of white 
about the cheeks or throat, whence they have been called 
cravat geese ; the upper parts of the body are dark gray 



GEESE AND BRANT. 4 1 

and the belly and tail coverts white. The white-fronted 
goose, genns Anscr, is much paler gray, has the bill and 
feet pink, and has no black except spots on breast and 
belly. In the genns Chcii three forms are pure white, 
except for the quill feathers of the wings, which are 
black. All have the head white in adult plumage. 
Philactc, the Alaska type, is grayish or bluish in color, 
variously marked with white. 

The North American geese are birds of powerful 
flight, non-divers, well adapted for progression on the 
land, usually breeders in high latitude, but wintering in 
open waters. Some are large birds, while others are 
smaller than some of the ducks, the weight in different 
species varying from 1 5 to 3 pounds. 

They feed almost altogether on vegetable matter, 
largely grass and aquatic plants ; and sometimes, after 
feeding for a time on the roots of certain sedges and 
other water plants, their flesh becomes very unpalatable 
from the strong flavor given it by this food. 

Geese are noisy birds, the voice of the smaller ones 
being shrill and cackling, while the cry of others, like 
the common Canada goose, is sonorous and resonant. 

Many years ago the geese, during the spring and 
autumn migration, were so enormously abundant in 
portions of Minnesota and in California that they did a 
vast amount of damage by eating the young wheat just 
appearing above the ground. In those days it was pos- 
sible to approach quite close to them on horseback, and 
the rider, having gotten as near to them as practicable, 
would charge upon the feeding flock, get among them 



42 



DUCK SHOOTING. 



before they could rise out of reach, and knock down 
several with a short club which he carried in his hand. 
It may be questioned whether this method of killing 
geese has been employed for a long time. In more re- 
cent years it is said to have been necessary for the Cali- 
fornia ranchers during the migrations to employ armed 
men, whose business it was to ride about, shooting with 
rifles at the feeding flocks and endeavoring to keep 
them constantly on the wing. 





BLUE GOOSE. 



Chen ccrndescens (Linn.). 



In the adult the head and upper part of the neck are 
white ; the rest of the neck, breast, back and rump blu- 
ish, or brownish-blue, many of the feathers with paler 
edges; wing light bluish gray; secondaries blackish, 
edged with white ; primaries black, fading to gray at 
the base ; tail brown, white margined ; under parts 
brownish gray and white, sometimes mostly white, and 
upper and under tail coverts white, or nearly so. The 
bill is pale pink, with white nail and a black line along 
the margin of each mandible. The legs and feet are 
pink or reddish. 

43 



44 DUCK SHOOTING. 

The young resemble the ackilt, l.ut have the head and 
neck grayish brown. The length of this goose is about 
28 inches ; the wing measures 16. 

Like many others of our inland water fowl, this 
goose often has the plumage of head, neck, breast and 
belly stained with rusty orange, as if soiled by iron 
rust. 

The blue goose is an inhal)itant of the interior, rang- 
ing from the Hudson's Bay district south along the 
Mississippi \^alley to the Gulf of Mexico. It is not 
found on either the Atlantic or Pacific coast, except 
that in a few cases it has been taken on the extreme 
northern coast of Maine. Little or nothing is known 
about its breeding habits, though the Eskimo and In- 
dians are authority for the statement that it breeds in 
the interior of Labrador; and the occurrence of the 
species in Maine would seem to lend color to this story. 
Moreover, ]\Ir. G. Barnston, in his paper on the Geese 
of Hudson's Bay, states that in the migration, the blue 
goose crosses James Bay, coming from the eastern 
coast, while at the same time the snow goose makes its 
appearance coming from the north. 

This species was long thought to be the young of the 
snow goose, and was so figured by Audubon, appearing 
on the same plate wnth that species. Occasionally speci- 
mens are found which have ccmsiderably more white on 
them than is given in the description above, but on the 
whole, it seems to be very well established that the 
species is a valid one. The color of the head and upper 
neck varies somewhat with age, the white of these parts 



BLUE GOOSE. 



45 



growing purer and less intermingled with dark feathers 
as the bird grows older. 

This is one of the so-called brant of the Mississippi 
Valley, and is known l)y a number of names, among 
which are blue brant, bald-headed goose, white-headed 
goose, oie bleu and bald brant. Being confined to the 
inland districts of the country, it is shot chiefly on the 
stubbles or the sand bars or in corn fields. 




> fc.^* .iisvw; 






4^ 



s°? 



Mjurt 




LESSER SNOW GOOSE. 



Chen hypcrhorca (Pall.). 

The adult is entirely white, except the primaries, or 
quill feathers of the first joint of the wing, which are 
black, changing to ash gray at the base. The bill is 
dark red, with black line along the margin of man- 
dibles ; the nail white ; the legs and feet red ; length, 
about 25 inches; wing, 15 1-2. In the young the head, 
neck and upper parts are pale grayish, with the wing 
coverts and tertiary feathers brown, edged with white. 
The primaries are black, and the rest of the upper parts 
white. The bill and feet are dark. 

The true snpw goose is a bird of Western distribu- 
tion, reaching from the Mississippi Valley westward to 

46 



LESSER SNOW GOOSE. 47 

the coast, and as far south as Texas and Southern Cali- 
fornia. It, nevertheless, occurs sometimes on the At- 
lantic coast, and I have known of its being killed on 
Long Island. It is perhaps the most abundant goose 
found in California, and occurs in large numbers all 
over the country from the valley of the Mississippi west 
to the Rocky Mountains, where it is often associated 
with the larger snow goose, to be described later. On 
the plains of Montana, near the foot-hills of the Rocky 
T\Iountains, they are abundant, and when they first ar- 
rive are quite gentle, so that I have often ridden on 
horseback within easy shooting distance of them, al- 
though a man on foot would not have been permitted 
to approach so near. 

In the Hudson's Bay district both forms of snow 
goose are abundant, and in old times used to form an 
important article of subsistence for the Hudson's Bay 
posts. Of late years, however, they have become so 
scarce that this source of food supply can no longer be 
depended upon. 

While the flesh of both the snow geese is highly es- 
teemed by seme people, I have never considered it de- 
sirable. Usually it has a strong taste of sedge, so pro- 
nounced as to be, to some palates, very disagreeable. 







GREATER SNOW GOOSE. 

Chcii livhrrborca iiiz'alis ( Forst. ) 



Precisely similar in all respects to the preceding, but 
larger. While the length of C. liypcrhorea is about 25 
inches, with a wing 15 1-2 inches, that of the present 
sub-species is 34 inches, with a wing over 17 inches. 
The two forms are often found associated together, 
and it is frequently difficult to determine to which one 
a bird belongs. 

The snow geese differ from many of their fellows in 
feeding largely on the land. They walk about much as 
do the domestic geese, ni])ping the grass and such other 
herbs as please their taste, and resort to the water 
chiefly for restmg. 

48 



GREATER SNOW GOOSE. 49 

The nest of the greater snow goose, as described by 
Mr. Macfarlane, consists merely of a hollow or depres- 
sion in the soil, lined with down and feathers. The 
eggs are large and are yellowish-white. 

All these interior geese, such as the blue goose and 
all the white geese, are known among the Indians and 
Hudson's Bay people of the north as wavies, the blue 
goose being called the blue wavy, the snow goose the 
large wavy, and Ross's goose the small wavy. The 
larger snow goose is common in Alaska. They do not 
breed in the neighborhood of the Yukon, but proceed 
further north to rear their young. The fall migration 
takes place in September, and by the end of that month 
all the snow geese are gone. In summer they proceed 
as far south as Texas and Cuba, where they are re- 
ported as abundant. 

As already remarked, snow geese are seen every win- 
ter in the mouth of the Delaware, and also on the coast 
of North Carolina, about Currituck Sound. 

The spectacle of a flock of these white geese flying is 
a very beautiful one. Sometimes they perform remark- 
able evolutions on the wing, and if seen at a distance 
look like so many snowflakes being whirled hither and 
thither by the wind. Scarcely less beautiful is the sight 
which may often be seen in the Rocky Mountain region 
during the migration. As one rides along under the 
wa'rm October sun he may have his attention attracted 
by sweet, faint, distant sounds, interrupted at first, and 
then gradually coming nearer and clearer, yet still only 
a murmur ; the rider hears it from above, before, behind 



50 DUCK SHOOTING. 

and all around, faintly sweet and musically discordant, 
always softened by distance, like the sound of far-off 
harps, of sweet bells jangled, of the distant baying of 
mellow-voiced hounds. Looking up into the sky above 
him he sees the serene blue far on high, flecked with 
tiny white moving shapes, which seem like snowflakes 
drifting la^^ily across the azure sky; and down to earth, 
falling, falling, falling, come the musical cries of the 
httle wavies that are journeying toward the south land. 
They pass, and slowly the sounds grow faint and 
fainter, and the listener thinks involuntarily of the well- 
known lines : 

Oh, liark, oh. hear ! how thin and clear, 

And thinner, clearer, farther going ! 
Oh, sweet and far from cliff and scar 
• The horns of Elfland faintly blowing! 

These birds and Ross's geese often stop to rest and 
feed on the Montana plains during their migration. I 
have more than once killed them with a rifle at St. 
Mary's Lake in the late autumn, and have started them 
from the little prairie pools, where they were feeding on 
a small farinaceous tuber, which is the root of some 
water plant. 




ROSS'S GOOSE. 



Chen rossii (Cassin) 



In color the plumage of the little Ross's goose is 
precisely similar both in adult and young to that of the 
larger snow geese ; that is, pure white, except for the 
primaries, which are black, becoming ash color at the 
base. The bill and feet are red ; the nail white. The 
base of the bill is usually covered with wart-like ex- 
crescences, or is wrinkled and roughened. There is 
great difference in the bills, no two being just alike. 
The young are white, tinged with gray, the centre of 
the feathers often being dark colored. 

Ross's goose is the smallest of our geese, being about 

51 



52 DUCK SHOOTING. 

the size of the mallard duck, and weighing from two 
and a half to three pounds. At a distance it is hard to 
distinguish it from the snow goose, hut the voice is 
shriller, and the birds rise on the wing more readily 
than most of the geese, si)ringing into the air and going 
upward more like mallards or black ducks than like 
geese. The range of this goose is given in the books as 
Arctic America in summer, and llie Pacific coast to 
Southern California in winter ; but, as a matter of fact, 
not very much is known about it. It has been taken 
quite frequently in California in winter, but is nowhere 
abundant. 

In Northwestern Montana it is a common fall mi- 
grant, coming rather later than the snow goose, and 
being abundant on the heads of Milk River, Cutbank 
and Two Medicine Lodge creeks through October and 
the first lialf of November. A few years ago Mr. Jos. 
Kipp ca;:tured there and partially domesticated no less 
than nine of these birds, but unfortunately, before the 
winter was over, all of them were killed by dogs. Dr. 
J. C. Merrill tells us that this goose is not uncommon in 
the vicinity of Fort Missoula, and Captain Bendire has 
taken it in Eastern Oregon in the spring. It is not a 
bird that is likely to be met with by sportsmen except in 
the localities referred to. and there it is usually shot by 
being approached under cover. 

I have seen it there in flocks of from seventy-five to 
one hundred, and have known of sixteen birds falling 
to the two discharges of a double-barreled gun. The 
flesh of those that I have eaten was delicious. 



,,c/'^l''''ll'lli'l'lfl''^''>ll'fflll(?l#l^^ 





WHITE-FRONTED GOOSE. 



Anscr albifrons (Gmel. ). 

In the genus A user the bill is much less stout than in 
Chen, and the nail, which terminates it, is thinner and 
less strong. The present species is generally grayish- 
brown in color, the feathers immediately about the bill 
being in adults white, bordered behind by dark brown. 
The head and neck are grayish-brown, darkest on 
crown of head and back of neck. The body is grayish, 
many of the feathers being tipped with white. The 
primaries are black, the rump slate-brown, the upper 
and under tail coverts white, and the tail grayish-brown 
margined with white. The under parts are grayish, 
variously, often heavily, blotched with blackish-brown ; 

53 



54 DUCK SHOOTING. 

bill, legs and feet, pinkish; the nail of the bill white; 
length. 28 inches ; wing, over 15. The young closely re- 
sembles the adult, but lacks the white about the bill, this 
part being dark brown ; it has no black blotches on the 
lower parts. The nail of the bill is black. 

The white-fronted goose is found in the northern 
parts of both the Old and the New World, though the 
two forms are separated l)y many ornithologists and 
made different races. The American bh-d is slightly 
larger than that of Europe, but the difference is small, 
and size is the only distinction. At all events, for the 
purposes of the gunner, they may be considered a single 
species. The white-fronted goose is generally distrib- 
uted throughout this country from the far north to our 
southern border, but is rare on the Atlantic coast. A 
specimen was taken recently in Currituck Sound. N. 
C, but none of the local gunners, knew what it was. 
The species occurs in Cuba as well as in Greenland. 

In all the Mississippi Valley region it is abundant 
during the migrations, where it is known as laughing 
goose, speckled belly, harlequin brant, pied brant, 
prairie brant, and often simply as brant. It is abundant 
also in California, and occurs in large numbers as far 
south as Southern California. In summer the white- 
fronted goose is found in Alaska, where some breed, 
and in great numbers on the islands of the Arctic 
Ocean. All northern explorers report it as abundant on 
the Mackenzie and throughout the country bordering 
the Barren Lands. In America it appears to be gen- 
erally a bird of western distribution. 



WHITE-FRONTED GOOSE. 55 

The white-fronted goose feeds largely on grass, and 
in former times did much damage to the young crops 
of wheat on the western coast during its migrations. 
It is said to feed also on berries, and to be seldom seen 
on the water except at night or when molting. The 
southward migration is undertaken late in September, 
and the flocks of white-fronted geese usually make their 
appearance on the western prairies early in October, 
when they are often associated with snow geese, in 
company with which they feed and journey to and from 
their feeding grounds. 

The flesh of the white-fronted goose is highly es- 
teemed, and is spoken of as being more delicate than 
that of any other goose, except possibly the young of 
the salt water brant. 

The nest of the white-fronted goose is usually built 
on the low ground, near fresh water ponds or marshes, 
and the six or eight yellowish-white eggs are commonly 
covered with down when the mother leaves them. 



^ ^ 





,;^: 




CANADA GOOSE. 



Branta canadensis (Linn.), 



Of all the so-called gray geese, the most common and 
best known is the Canada goose. Of this there are four 
different forms — the Canada goose, Branta canaden- 
sis; Htitchins's goose, Branta canadensis hntchinsii; 
white-cheeked goose. Branta canadensis occidcntalis; 
and cackling goose, Branta canadensis niininia. Of 
these the common wild goose and Hntchins's goose are 
distributed over the wdiole United States, the latter 
being chiefly western in its distribution, while the 
white-cheeked or western goose and the cackling goose 
are exclusively western, although the last named oc- 
casionally occurs in the Mississippi Valley. 

m 



CANADA GOOSE. 



57 




St.„ 






HUTCHINS S GOOSE. 




58 DUCK SHOOTING. 

The Canada goose h?s a triangular white patch on 
each cheek, the two meeting under the throat, though 
rarely they are separated by a l)lack line. The head, 
neck, wing quills, rump and tail are black ; the lower 
belly, upper and under tail coverts white; the upper 
parts are dark grayish-brown, the feathers with paler 
tips, and the lower parts are gray, fading gradually 
into the white of the belly. The tail feathers number 
from eighteen to twenty. The bird's length is from 36 
to 40 inches, wing 18. The young are similar to the 
adult, but the white cheek patches are sometimes 
marked with black, and the black of the neck fades 
gradually into the grayish of the breast. 



Branta canadensis hutchinsii (Rich.). 

Hutchins's goose exactly resembles the Canada goose 
in color, but is smaller, and has fourteen or sixteen tail 
feathers. The length of Hutchins's goose is about 30 
inches, wing 16 inches or over. 



Branta canadensis occidentalis (Baird). 

The western goose closely resembles the Canada 
goose, although it is slightly smaller. At the base of 
the black neck there is a distinct white collar running 
around the neck, and separating the black from the 
gray and brown of the body. "This white collar," Mr. 



CANADA GOOSE. 



59 







^"A^^IrS^- eJ^^^S^ 



CACKLING GOOSE. 

Ridgway writes me, "is a seasonal character, and may 
occur in all the sub-species. It fades out in summer and 
reappears with the fresh molt in autumn. Of this fact 
I had proof in a domesticated Hutchins's goose which 
my father had for some eight or ten years." The back 
and wings are slightly paler than in the Canada goose, 
while the feathers of the breast are perhaps a little 
darker. The tail feathers are i8 to 20, as in the Can- 
ada goose; the bird's length is from 33 to 36 inches, 
wing 18 inches or less. This sub-species is also called 
the white-cheeked goose. 



Branta canadensis minima Ridgw. 



The cackling goose bears the same relation to the 
western goose that Hutchins's does to the Canada 
goose, except that the difference in size is much greater. 



6o DUCK SHOOTING. 

The tail feathers are 14 to 16; the length of the bird is 
about 24 inches; wing about 14 inches. The coloring 
is almost exactly that of the western goose. 

Of these four forms, the Canada goose is the only 
one of general distribution through(3Ut North America. 
It is found from the Arctic Ocean to the Gulf of Mex- 
ico, and from the Atlantic to tiie Pacific; and during 
the m.igrations is abundant in New England, as well as 
over the more sparsely settled parts of the country. On 
the Pacific coast it is less common than the western 
ofoose, but inland it is found in numbers. 

The common wild goose is an early migrant, and 
often passes North while the waters are still sealed in 
their icy fetters. Soon after its arrival in the North, 
however, the water becomes open, and the birds mate 
and separate to select their summer homes. The six or 
eight eggs are laid in nests, sometimes in the marshes, 
sometimes on higher land, not far from water, and 
again on the broken-off stubs of trees, or even in a nest 
among the branches, high above the ground. The eggs 
are ivory white, and are carefully brooded by the 
mother bird. Early in June the young are hatched and 
taken to the water. Usually they are accompanied by 
both parents, and at this time, if danger approaches, 
they follow the mother in a long line, imitating her 
movements, sinking lower and lower in the water as 
she sinks in her attempt to hide, and finally diving and 
scattering under the water when she dives. Soon after 
the young birds appear the old ones begin to molt, and 



CANADA GOOSE. 6l 

this is a period of danger for them, many being killed at 
this time by the Eskimo and the Indians. 

All along the Missouri River and its tributaries, and 
by lakes scattered over the great plains, the Canada 
goose formerly bred in considerable numbers, and 
twenty years ago broods of these birds were commonly 
seen during tlie summer along these rivers and upon 
the prairies near these little lakes. The settlement of 
the western country, however, has made such breeding- 
places no longer available, and the geese are therefore 
obliged to journey further to the North before rearing- 
their young. 

The wild goose is readily domesticated, and this fact 
is taken advantage of by gunners, who capture crippled 
birds, keep them until cured, and subsequently use them 
as decoys to draw the passing flocks within gun-shot 
of their places of concealment. Not infrequently the 
geese breed in confinement, though it is probable this^ 
does not take place until the females are three years old. 
Sometimes such domesticated geese, when tethered out 
as decoys, esca]:)e and swim off to join flocks of wild 
geese, but as tlie tame ones commonly cannot fly, they 
are left behind by tl:e flocks when these move away, 
and fre(|uently turn about and make their way back to 
the place where their fellow captives are confined. A 
case of this sort came under my notice in Currituck 
Sound in the winter of 1900, when an old gander be- 
longing to the Narrows Island Club, that had slipped 
his loops and gotten away, made his way back, after 
three weeks of freedom, nearly to the goose pen where 



62 DUCK SHOOTING. 

the rest of the stand were kept. The superintendent of 
the club had heard the goose calhng for several days 
and recognized his voice, and after considerable search 
found him in one of the little leads in the island. 

The flight of the wild goose is firm, swift and steady. 
The birds commonly fly in a V or triangle, though 
sometimes they spread out into a great crescent whose 
convexity is directed forward. 

The alertness and wariness of this bird have become 
proverbial, and when at rest, either on the land or 
water, it is particularly watchful and difficult of ap- 
proach. Geese are exceedingly gregarious, and where 
a flock is resting on the water all birds passing near 
them are likely to lower their flight, and after making- 
one or two circles in the air, to join the resting birds. 
For this reason, wdien flying alone or in companies of 
two or three, the goose may often be called up to 
wooden decoys by an imitation of its cry. Where geese 
are abundant it is exceedingly common for the gunners 
to call such single birds to within gunshot. 

In windy weather the geese, when their flight obliges 
them to face the gale, fly low, and often barely top the 
reeds of the marshes among which they are wintering. 
In foggy weather, or when snow is falling, they also 
fly low, keeping close to the water, apparently looking- 
for a place in which to alight. At such times they come 
to decoys w'ith especial readiness. Sometimes in foggy 
weather, when flying over the land, they seem to be- 
come confused and fly about in circles, as if they had 
quite lost their way. 




■/ 3 

U < 

1 C 

W -a 



CANADA GOOSE. 63 

Hutchins's goose, though so Hke the Canada goose in 
coloring, differs from it in habits. Its breeding place 
is further to the North, and is on the coast near the salt 
water. There their nests are usually constructed in 
marshes near the sea, but Audubon quotes Captain 
Ross as stating that they sometimes breed on ledges of 
the cliffs. In winter this species is found in California 
and in Texas; and on the Pacific coast great numbers 
are killed from blinds, and also from behind domestic 
animals, trained to approach them gradually, as if feed- 
ing. Hutchins's goose is common in Alaska, and is re- 
ported there by all the explorers. Mr. Macfarlane 
found them also breeding on the shores and islands of 
the Arctic Sea. 

Whether Hutchins's goose is found at all on the 
North Atlantic coast appears to be an unsettled ques- 
tion. The books and the gunners alike state that it 
used to be found there, but if it occurs at present it is 
very unusual. 

Like the Canada goose, Hutchins's goose some- 
times has its nest in trees. A case of this kind is cited 
by Dr. Brewer, who states that in one instance four 
eggs of this species were found in the deserted nest of 
a crow or hawk, built on the fork of a pine tree and at 
a height of nine feet. The parent bird was shot on the 
nest. 

Besides the ordinary book names applied to this 
species, Mr. Gurdon Trumbull, in his admirable 
"Names and Portraits of Birds," quotes Eskimo goose, 
mud goose, goose brant, marsh goose and prairie goose, 



64 DUCK SHOOTING. 

as well as the general term, brant, which is commonly 
applied to all the smaller geese. Mr. Elliot says that 
among the Aleutians this bird is called the tundrina 
goose. 

The habits of the cackling goose do not appear to 
differ at all from those of the Canada goose, but its 
range is a very narrow one, being restricted during the 
summer to the Bering seacoast of Alaska, its principal 
breeding place being the shores of Norton Sound. It 
does not occur during the breeding season anywhere 
south of the Alaska Peninsula, the breeding birds from 
Cook's Inlet southward being the white-cheeked goose. 
During migration it extends along the Pacific coast as 
far as California, but the birds seen in summer along 
the inlets of the British Columbia and Alaska coast are 
not this species, but the white-cheeked goose. It 
reaches California in its southward migration about the 
middle of October, and departs again for the North in 
April. 



A^--^'" 





"MwiUrSlKl^pAV- 



_^'-' :;«:-:^C3^£^^^^'-^V^^"*: -F^k " 



BARNACLE GOOSE. 



Branta Icucopsis (Bechst.). 



Another species of this group is the barnacle goose 
(Branta Icucopsis), which is entitled to mention here 
only to complete the list of our wildfowl. It is a strag- 
gler from Europe, where it is very common. No doubt 
it regularly occurs in Greenland. A specimen has been 
taken near Rupert House, at the southern end of Hud- 
son's Bay, and others in Nova Scotia, on Long Island 
and in Currituck Sound, in North Carolina. It is not a 
bird likely to be met with by the sportsmen, and yet, if 
met with it should at once be reported, since every in- 
stance of its capture is of interest. It is a small bird, 
only a little larger than a brant, and may be known by 



ti.5 



66 DUCK SHOOTING. 

its having almost the whole head white. The lores — 
that is to say, the space between the eye and the bill — 
the back of head, neck and breast, are black ; the wings 
and back are gray, the feathers being tipped by a black 
bar and margined with white. The under parts are 
pale grayish ; the bill, feet and legs black. The young 
have the white cheek patches dotted with black, and 
the feathers of the back tipped with reddish-brown. 

It seems noteworthy that the few specimens of this 
bird taken in America differ from specimens from Eu- 
rope, in being somewhat paler. 

The barnacle goose breeds in great numbers in Si- 
beria and Spitzbergen, and it is found in winter in great 
numbers on the west coast of Great Britain and the 
north coast of Ireland. In some places in England the 
barnacle goose has been to some extent domesticated, 
and has bred in captivity. 



•ST:* • • » — > fc.^ 



lj::JS\W!i- €ri 






BRANT. 



Branta bcrnicla (Linn.). 



Two species of brant, known as the brant or brant 
goose (Branta bcrnicla), and the black brant (Branta 
nigricans) , occupy respectively the Atlantic and Pacific 
coasts of America. Both are salt water birds, and, as a 
rule, do not venture inland. They are found almost 
exclusively on tide waters, although stragglers have oc- 
casi:nally been taken in the Mississippi Valley. The 
common brant of the Atlantic coast is common to the 
Old and the New World. Both these species are 
small geese, but little larger than Ross's goose, which, 
as already stated, is about the size of a mallard duck. 

67 



68 DUCK SHOOTING. 

The common brant has the liead, neck, breast and fore 
back black, with narrow touches of white on either side 
of the neck, just below the head. The upper parts are 
brownish-gray, much as in the Canada goose, but each 
feather is narrowly margined with grayish. The under 
parts are grayish-white, fading into pure white on the 
bellv, the upper and under tail coverts being also white. 
The middle of the rump and the quill feathers of the 
wing are blackish. The tail is black, as are the bill, 
legs and feet. The young is not noticeably different, 
except that the white touches on the neck are likely to 
be absent, and white bars cross the wing, formed by 
the white tips of the secondary feathers. 





/v«si«iii4/''''3-''» 






I////// 



^ 



^\^ 1. MlJ^^^vd^ 



BLACK BRAKT. 

Branta nigricans (Lawr.). 

The black brant is like its eastern relative, but instead 
of having the faint white neck touches, it has a broad 
white collar about its neck, which, however, does not 
quite meet behind. The general color of this bird is 
much darker than that of its eastern relative. The 
upper parts, wings and under parts are dark brown, in 
sharp contrast to the white belly and upper and under 
tail coverts. The length is about 25 inches, and the 
wing 12 1-2 inches. 



The brant goes to the far North to breed, and its nest 
Captain Fielden found the nest 

69 



was long unknown. 



/O DUCK SHOOTING. 

and eggs in latitude 82 degrees 33 minutes north, 
and subsequently many others in the same neighbor- 
hood. These nests were on the beach, near the water. 
In Greenland Dr. Walker, who found this species near 
Godthaab, as well as in the mouth of Bellot's Straits, 
saw nests built in the cliffs which formed the sides of 
the strait. On the European side of the water the bird 
has been found breeding in great numbers at Spitz- 
bergen, where the ground was sometimes covered with 
its nests. 

During its migrations the brant appears on the New 
England coast in October or November, and is found 
from there south along the /\tlantic as far as South 
Carolina. Its favorite wintering grounds seem to be 
the coasts of Virginia and North and South Carolina, 
where it remains in great flocks all winter, unless driven 
further southward by extremely severe weather. It is 
a gentle, unsuspicious bird, and is readily decoyed. On 
the Massachusetts coast it is killed chiefly in spring on 
the sand bars, to which it resorts for the purpose of 
sanding. In its more southern haunts it is commonly 
shot from a battery or a bush blind. 

Brant do not dive for their food, but feed in the same 
way as do geese, ducks and other shoal water wildfowl, 
by stretching the long neck down to the bottom and 
pulling up the grass that grows there. It is thus evi- 
dent that they can only feed at certain stages of the 
tide. 

Brant are not uncommon in captivity, and are used 
in New England as decoys on the sand bars. The 



BLACK BRANT. 7 1 

flocks of migrating birds rarely come up to the land or 
to points of marsh where there is any opportunity for 
concealment, and thus few are shot from the shore, ex- 
cept on the bars. 

The range of the black brant has already been given. 
Two or three specimens have been taken on the Atlantic 
coast, but these were merely stragglers. On the Pacific 
coast in winter it is found on salt water bays and estu- 
aries, from the straits of Fuca south to San Diego. 
They make their appearance in October, and leave again 
in April. 

Black brant appear to be very little shot, notwith- 
standing their great numbers. On their northward 
migration they usually proceed in small flocks of from 
twenty to fifty, but at times collect in such immense 
numbers that great quantities of them are killed. This 
is especially true if the birds have to wait near the edge 
of the ice for the northern waters, which they are seek- 
ing, to become open. 

The black brant breeds near the Arctic Ocean. Mr. 
Macfarlane found their nests on little islands in fresh 
water ponds or in rivers, and saw many others on the 
shores or on islands in Franklin Bay. The number of 
eggs in a nest was usually five. 

In its migration this species follows the Alaskan 
coast, over the Bering Sea, passing outside of St. 
Michael's Island, proceeding to Stewart's Island, and 
thence northward across the open sea to Golofin Sound. 
They are found in Norton Sound by the middle of May, 
and breed in this neighborhood in great numbers. 




EMPEROR GOOSE. 



Philacte canagica (Sevast.), 



The emperor is one of the handsomest of the Ameri- 
can geese. It is a bird of very Hmited distribution, 
being confined to the Bering Sea and its vicinity, 
though very rarely specimens straggle southward in 
\v inter along the Pacific coast of the United States as 
far as California. The emperor goose may be known 
from all the other North American geese by the re- 
markable form of its bill ; this is extremely short, with 
a very broad and thick nail, which occupies almost one- 
third of the length. The tarsus, or naked portion of 
the leg, betw^een the toes and the joint above, is very 
short in proportion to the toes. 

72 



EMPEROR GOOSE. 73 

In the adult emperor goose the head and back of the 
neck are white; the front and sides of the throat and 
neck are brownish-black, slightly spotted with white ; 
the tail is slate-color at the base and white at the end ; 
the rest of the plumage is bluish, each feather having 
at its end a narrow bar of white, bordered by a crescent- 
shaped black marking. The secondary feathers of the 
wing are slaty-black, margined with white ; the long- 
quills black. The bill is bluish or purplish ; the nail 
white, darker at the edges, and the legs and feet bright 
yellow. 

The young are similar to the adult, but have the head 
and neck lead color, sometimes sprinkled with white. 

All the explorers of Alaska have found this species 
more or less abundant in that territory. It also occurs 
on some of the islands of the Bering Sea, as well as on 
the Commander Islands, on the Siberian coast. Mr. 
H. W. Elliot tells us that flocks sometimes land on the 
Pribilof Islands in an exhausted condition, so that the 
natives run them down on the grass, the birds being 
unable to fly. Mr. Dall speaks of the exceedingly 
strong odor of garlic proceeding from the raw flesh and 
skin, and says that this odor makes the work of skin- 
ning the birds very disagreeable. With cooking, the 
smell disappears. 

The emperor geese breed on the flat, marshy islands 
of the Alaskan coast, the nest sometimes being placed 
amid the driftwood, even below high-water mark. Like 
most other geese, the female covers the eggs with down 
from her breast. 



74 



DUCK SHOOTING. 



When the molting season begins the Eskimo kill 
these geese in common with others, capturing them by 
means of nets set on the marshes, into which the molt- 
ing birds are driven. At this time the destruction of 
the birds is very great. 

This species in Norton Sound is called white-headed 
goose, while the name applied to it by the Russians is 
sa-sar-ka, meaning guinea hen, evidently from the col- 
oring of the plumage. 



iJ 




TREE DUCKS. 

Intermediate between the true geese and the ducks 
are the so-called tree ducks, belonging to the genus 
Dcndrocygna. Of these, two species are found along 
our southern border, and occasionally afford some sport 
to gunners. They are rather duck-like in form, but 
have very large heads and feet, the tarsus being reticu- 
late instead of scutellate, like the ducks. In other 
words, the skin of the tarsus is covered by small scales, 
looking like a network, instead of by broad, deep scales 
which overlap in front. This, it will be remembered, 
is a character of the geese {Anserincc). Moreover, 
the tarsus in the tree ducks is equal to or longer than 
the middle toe, instead of being shorter than it. The 
lower part of the thigh is naked, and the hind toe is 
extremely long. 

This group appears to have relationship with the Old 
World sheldrakes, and with the goose-like genus 
Chenalopcx, rather than with either the ducks or the 
geese. They are birds of tropical distribution, and in 
the United States are found only along the southern 
border. One species is common in the West India Isl- 
ands. None of them, however, is sufficiently abun- 
dant to be considered as furnishing gunning, but two of 
the three species belong in the list of our water fowl. 




BLACK-BELLIED TREE DUCK. 

Dendrocygna antumnalis (Linn.). 



The neck, back and breast are cinnamon-brown, the 
forehead somewhat paler. Sides of head, throat and 
upper neck yellowish-gray. At the back of the head a 
black strip begins, which runs down the back of the 
neck. The middle of the back, rump, upper tail coverts, 
belly, flanks and under wing coverts are black ; the wing 
coverts are yellowish, fading into ashy and grayish- 
white on the greater coverts. When it is closed the 
wing thus shows a white strip for nearly its whole 
length. The tail is blackish-brown, and the under parts 

76 



BLACK-BELLIED TREE DUCK. 7/ 

yellowish-brown. The under tail coverts are white; 
the bill is red, changing to orange at the base ; its nail 
is bluish; legs and feet whitish. The young bird re- 
sembles the adult, but its colors are duller throughout, 
and it lacks the black flanks and belly ; they are grayish- 
white, barred with dusky ; length, 19 inches ; wing 9 1-2 
inches. 

In certain parts of Texas the black-bellied tree duck 
is not a scarce bird. It is found there in summer and 
autumn, and at this time of the year visits the grain 
fields, where some shooting at them may sometimes be 
had. Its name is well applied, for it perches in the 
trees without difficulty, and walks about on the 
branches as if much at home. In fact, it is said to pass 
the hours of daylight largely in the branches of trees, 
and to do its feeding and traveling chiefly at night. 
This duck nests in the hollow trees, and there deposits 
twelve to fifteen eggs, without forming any nest. 
When hatched the young are said to be carried to the 
water in the mother's bill. 

It is easily domesticated, and when once tamed asso- 
ciates with the fowls of the farm on perfectly good 
terms. When tamed it is said to be very watchful, and 
to utter a shrill call at the approach of any individual 
or at any unusual sound. 

In Texas, where the bird is most common, it is 
known as the tree duck, corn field or long-legged duck, 
while in Louisiana the common appellation for it is 
fiddler duck, from the clear call-note that it utters at 
night when in flight. It frequents the old corn fields 



78 



DUCK SHOOTING. 



which have been overflowed, and from such places it 
may be started in pairs, often giving good shooting. 
Its flesh is highly esteemed. Some of the local names 
used in South America and in Mexico are applied to it 
by reason of its call-note. 

Mr. Xantus took a single specimen of this duck at 
Fort Tejon, in Southern California, but this is the only 
specimen known from that State. In Mexico and Cen- 
tral America they are common. Dr. Merrill states that 
these birds reach Fort Brown, Texas, from the South 
in April. Most of them depart again in September or 
October, but some stay until November. 




'^§Sli0' 



W'lllism^ 




\ 



FULVOUS-BELLIED TREE DUCK. 



Dendrocygna fiilva (Gmel.). 

The brown tree cluck is a more northerly species than 
the preceding, and is found in Mexico and northward 
through parts of California and Nevada, as well as in 
Texas and Louisiana. The head, neck and lower parts 
are deep reddish-yellow, darkest on top of head, and 
changing to reddish on the flanks, the longer feathers 
being streaked with pale yellow ; middle of neck whitish 
obscurely streaked with black. A distinct black stripe 
runs from the head down the hind part of the neck. 
The upper parts are brownish-black, the feathers of the 
wing being tipped with chestnut. The upper tail cov- 

79 



8o DUCK SHOOTING. 

erts are white ; the belly and lower tail coverts yellow- 
ish-white; the bill is blackish, and the feet and legs are 
slate-blue; the length is about 20 inches; wing, 9 1-2 
inches. The colors of the young are somewhat duller, 
and the wing coverts lack the chestnut. 

The fulvous tree duck, known as the yellow-bellied 
fiddler in Louisiana, and the long-legged duck in Texas, 
is quite common there at certain seasons. Its habits do 
net vary greatly from those of the black-bellied tree 
duck. Like that species, it spends much of its time in 
fresh water lakes and sloughs, feeding on the grasses 
that grow there, and it also visits the corn fields at night 
in search of grain. 

The flesh of both these species is said to be very de- 
licious, and is eagerly sought after. The birds are shot 
only by being stumbled on or by lying in wait for them 
as they come into or leave the corn fields. 

This duck is exceedingly unsuspicious and readily 
permits approach, so that many of them are killed. 
When crippled, however, their strong legs enable them 
to run very fast, and, like all ducks, they are expert 
hiders, getting into the grass and lying there without 
moving. The bird is also a good diver, and if it reaches 
the water is not likely to be captured. It is said never 
to be found on the salt water, but confines itself entirely 
to inland pools, rivers and swamps. 



THE TRUE DUCKS. 

The ducks may always be distinguished from their 
relatives, the geese, by characters already indicated. 
The tarsus, that is to say, the naked portion of the leg, 
between the joint where the feathers end and that 
where the toes begin, is covered in front by broad, 
overlapping scales, instead of by a naked skin, orna- 
mented with small hexagonal scales. The ducks are 
usually smaller than the geese. They are also, as a 
rule, more highly colored, though this brilliancy pre- 
vails more in the males of the fresh-water ducks than 
in the sea ducks. Nevertheless, this is not the invari- 
able rule, for the males of all the mergansers, and such 
species of sea ducks as the eiders, the harlequin, the 
butter-ball and long-tailed duck are extremely showy 
and beautiful birds. As a rule the ducks have shorter 
necks and legs than the geese. 

It has long been known to naturalists and to a few 
gunners that in the mallard and some other ducks the 
males assume during the summer a plumage very dif- 
ferent from that which they commonly wear during the 
autumn, winter and spring, and not unlike that of the 
female. This is not generally known, and even by 
ornithologists has not always been understood. Re- 
cently, however, in the Proceedings of the Academy of 
Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, for the last quarter of 

81 



82 DUCK SHOOTING. 

1899, Mr. Witmer Stone, in a paper entitled "The 
Summer Molting Plumage of Certain Ducks," has dis- 
cussed the subject in a very suggestive way. 

Mr. Stone calls attention to the fact that in only one 
of our ducks — the old scjuaw — does the adult male pos- 
sess a distinct winter plumage which is different from 
the breeding dress, that the old males of all our other 
ducks remain in the same plumage from the time they 
arrive in autumn till their departure northward in 
spring, and intimates that, judging by analogy, we 
should suppose that since these ducks show no tendency 
toward a change of plumage when they leave us in the 
spring, they must retain the same feathers that covered 
them during the winter until the end of the breeding 
season, when a complete molt should occur and a new 
dress be assumed exactly like the one just shed. 

It is known, however, that this is not the fact, and, as 
stated, the "plumage after the breeding season" has 
been described in some species. The first record of 
this peculiar summer plumage in the male ducks is 
found in the supplement to Montagu's "Ornithological 
Dictionary," 1813, under the head of "The Pintail 
(Dafila acuta)." The observations made on some do- 
mesticated birds are given as follows : "In the month of 
June or beginning of July these birds commenced their 
change of plumage, and by degrees after making a sin- 
gular mottled appearance, especially on the part of the 
body which was white before, became by the first week 
in August entirely of a brown color. The beautiful 
bronze on the head, the white streak on each side of the 



THE TRUE DUCKS. 83 

neck, and all the white beneath, as well as the elegant 
scapulars, had entirely vanished, and to all appearance 
a sexual metamorphosis had taken place. But this 
change was of short duration, for about the latter end 
of September one of the males began to assume the 
masculine attire * * * ^j^j i-^y ^|-,g middle of Oc- 
tober this bird was again in full plumage." 

Twenty-five years later the naturalist Waterton de- 
scribed a similar molt in the male mallard, and as time 
went on, other species were found to undergo like 
changes. In Mr. Ridgway's "Manual of North Ameri- 
can Birds," a number of species are given as having a 
peculiar summer plumage resembling the female. Such 
are the mallard, blue-wing and cinnamon teal, the gad- 
wall, widgeon, pintail and scaup. On the whole, how- 
ever, very little is said in the books about this change. 

Mr. Stone's examination of four species of eider 
ducks brought back from the Arctic by Mr. E. A. Mc- 
Ilhenny, and taken near Point Barrow, in the late sum- 
mer or early autumn, leads Mr. Stone to believe that in 
all ducks where the plumages of the male and female 
are markedly different we may expect to find this double 
molt and a dull summer plumage in the male. He 
points out that this summer plumage is in no sense a 
nuptial dress, and that while it may begin to appear 
before the young birds are hatched, it is not seen until 
after the mating season is over, and is distinctly a post- 
nuptial dress. The change is chiefly restricted to the 
head, neck, breast and scapulars ; in other words, to 
those parts which are most conspicuously colored. 



84 DUCK SHOOTING. 

A very important point in connection with this sum- 
mer plumage is that the annual molt of the flight feath- 
ers does not begin until it has been fully acquired, and 
that as soon as the new flight feathers have become 
strong enough to be used, the dull plumage, as well as 
the remainder of the old plumage, is lost, the molt of 
the body feathers proceeding in the usual way. In other 
words, this dull plumage lasts only during the period 
while the birds are unable to fly, for. as is well under- 
stood, ducks molt the quill feathers of their wings all at 
once, and for a time lose the power of flight. Now at 
such a time a dull plumage would naturally be useful in 
rendering the bird inconspicuous, and thereby protect- 
ing it, and Mr. Stone believes this to be the explanation 
of this curious summer molt. He adds that the feath- 
ers of this plumage are very poor and loosely con- 
structed, like the "first" plumage of young birds, which 
is only a temporary summer dress. 

Mr. Stone quotes European authors who have de- 
scribed eider ducks of different species in this dress, but 
have called them young males, evidently not appreciat- 
ing the meaning of the change. He then goes on to 
describe in detail this summer plumage in four species 
of Pacific eiders and in the red-breasted merganser, 
from which it appears that up to July the nuptial dress 
of the male is usually retained, but that by the latter 
part of August and in early September this "summer 
molting plumage," as Mr. Stone calls it, is fully as- 
sumed. 



NON-DIVING DUCKS. 

SUB-FAMILY Anatincc. 

As has already been said, the ducks are divided into 
three sub-famiHes. Of these the first is the Anatincc, 
or fresh-water ducks. One unvarying character of this 
group is tliat it has the hind toe simple, while in all 
the sea or diving ducks it is lobed, or provided with 
a loose membrane or flap. The feet of the fresh- 
water ducks, as a rule, are smaller than those of the 
sea ducks, formed more for progression on land than 
for swimming. The fresh-water ducks feed in shallow 
water, gathering their food from the bottom by 
stretching down the neck, or by tipping up the body, 
as do also the geese and the swans. They do not dive 
for food, though they often do so to escape from dan- 
ger when wounded. As a rule they feed on vegetable 
matter, from which it results that their flesh is very 
palatable. As it is a fact, however, that all ducks are 
indiscriminate feeders, in cases where the fresh-water 
ducks have access to animal food their flesh readily 
acquires an unpleasant, fishy taste. There are thirteen 
or fourteen species of fresh-water ducks found in 
North America, most of which are familiar to gunners. 
Naturalists are by no means agreed as to the proper no- 
menclature to be applied to the different species in this 

85 



86 



DUCK SHOOTING. 



group, but for the purposes of this work it will be suf- 
ficient to take that adopted by the American Ornitholo- 
gists' Union in its revised Check List of North Ameri- 
can Birds. It is to be noted, however, that the order in 
which the species are arranged is not that of the Clieck 
List. 




4^"'. _■ -.- 




MALLARD. 



Anas boschas Linn. 



Tn autumn, winter and spring the colors of the mal- 
lard are those of the common domestic duck, which is 
its descendant. The head and neck are brilliant metal- 
lic green, sometimes showing golden and purple reflec- 
tions, according to the light's reflection. About the 
neck, below this green, is a narrow ring of white, usu- 
ally broken at the back. The back is brown, or brown- 
ish-gray, finely waved with grayish-white, as are the 
inner scapular feathers, which darken to rich brown on 
the wing. The speculum, or wing patch, is violet, 
with metallic reflections, crossed near the end with a 
black bar, and tipped with a white one. The rump and 

87 



88 DUCK SHOOTING. 

upper tail-coverts are black, and the tail white, each 
feather being grayish along the shaft. The breast is 
deep glossy chestnut, and the other under parts gray, 
waved with narrow black lines. The under tail-cov- 
e-^ts are l)lack. The bill is yellow-green, with a black 
nail, the eyes dark brown and the feet orange. The 
length is about 2 feet and the wing from 11 to 12 
inches. The summer dress of the male closely resem- 
bles that of the female, but is darker. This plumage 
is assumed in June and is lost again in August, when 
the winter dress is resumed. 

The female is colored much as the female of the 
tame duck ; the feathers generally are dusky, with 
broad, pale yellow or buff edges. On the upper parts 
the dark color predominates; on the lower, the buff, 
often almost to the exclusion of the blackish streaks. 
The wing patch is colored as in the male, as are the 
bill, feet and legs. The chin is almost white and the 
throat is buff. 

No one of our ducks has a wider range than the 
mallard, which, as has been said, is the progenitor of 
the common domestic duck. It is found (^ver the en- 
tire northern portion of the world ; and. in America, 
as far south as Mexico, while in Europe it breeds in 
Southern Spain and Greece. It is believed to be com- 
mon throughout Asia, except in tropical India, and it 
is more or less abundant in Northern xAfrica. Al- 
though a migratory bird, the mallard may usually be 
found througlicut its range in winter, provided there 
is open water, and so a place where it may feed. In 



MALLARD. 89 

many places in the Northern Rocky Mountains, where 
the thermometer often goes to 30 or 40 degrees below 
zero, mallards may be found throughout the winter 
living in warm springs or along swift streams, where 
the current is so rapid that the water never freezes. 
Thus it is seen that the winter's cold has little to do 
with the migration of the mallard — or, in fact, with 
that of many other ducks — and that, if food is plenty, 
the birds can bear almost any degree of cold. It is the 
freezing of the waters and thus the shutting off of the 
food supply that forces these inland birds to move 
southward. 

In the New England States the mallard is not a 
common bird, but in the Southern States, the interior 
and California it is extremely abundant. 

In the northern interior the mallard is shot from 
early October until the waters close in November, and 
all through the winter it is abundant in the Southern 
States. Here it feeds in the marshes along the salt 
water, in the rice fields and along the sloughs and 
streams throughout the interior, and becomes fat and 
well flavored and is eagerly pursued. It comes readily 
to decoys and if one or more live ducks are tethered 
with the decoys to call down the wild birds, they are 
quite certain to respond and to offer easy shooting to 
the gunner. Formerly the mallard bred in consid- 
erable numbers within the limits of the United States, 
though it has never been a common bird at any season 
on the Atlantic coast north of New York. Yet it 
used to breed in great numbers in Illinois, Indiana, 



go DUCK SHOOTING. 

Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota, as well as in the 
prairies of the further West and about alkaline lakes 
and pools on the high central plateau. Now, most 
of the birds proceed further north to breed, and 
Canada, the Hudson's Bay country and the shores of 
the Arctic Sea are all occupied by it during the nesting 
season. Dr. Brewer states that "it has been known in 
rare instances to nest in a tree, in such cases occupying 
a deserted nest of a hawk, crow or other large bird." 

The mallard is one of our typical fresh-water ducks. 
It is rarely or never found on salt water, but, on the 
other hand, is common on the lagoons along the south- 
ern Atlantic coast which are brackish. Here it asso- 
ciates with many other fresh-water ducks and is fre- 
quently seen flying in company with black ducks, sprig- 
tails, widgeons and other species. 

The mallard rises from the water by a single spring, 
almost straight up in the air, and then flies upward at 
a sharp angle, until it has reached a height of thirty or 
forty feet, when it flies rapidly away. Its speed on the 
wing is considerable and when coming before the 
wind it is necessary for the gunner to make consid- 
erable allowance to hit it. When the mallard rises on 
the water it usually utters several loud quacks of alarm, 
and when associated in companies, as it usually is, the 
birds keep up a more or less continuous conversation. 
When flying, its attention is readily attracted by an 
imitation of its note, and this call, made either with 
the nK.uth or with an instrument known as a duck call, 
is often used to lead it to observe the decoys. If it 



MALLARD. 9 1 

can be made to see these, it is extremely likely to come 
to them. 

This species readily hybridizes with certain other 
ducks. A hybrid supposed to be mallard and muscovy 
duck is common. So also is one between the mallard 
and the black duck, and of these I have killed a num- 
ber. They bear a general resemblance to the black 
duck, but the head and neck are much darker and show 
glossy reflections. Moreover, the crissum or anal re- 
gion is jet black, as are the upper tail-coverts, and the 
male is likely to possess the recurved tail feathers which 
characterize the mallard drake. 

Many years ago, in Carbon county, Wyoming, I 
killed a male hybrid between the mallard and pintail. 
In form it resembles the male pintail, but its head is 
blackish green, with metallic reflections, almost the 
color of the male shoveller. Its breast is chestnut and 
its back much like that of a mallard. The general effect 
is that of a male pintail with mallard coloring. 

Perhaps no one of our North American ducks is so 
well known as the mallard, and yet it has compara- 
tively few common names. It is called greenhead, wild 
drake, wild duck, English duck, French duck and gray 
duck, or sometimes gray mallard for the female. In 
Canada the name stock duck was formerly common, 
referring evidently to this bird as a progenitor of the 
domestic duck. The French Canadians call it canard 
Francais or French duck. Mr. Trumbull calls atten- 
tion to the old but now obsolete duckinmallard, a word 
supposed to be a corruption of duck and mallard, duck 



92 



DUCK SHOOTING. 



hc'mg the female and mallard the male. The word is 
thus the equivalent of duck and drake, it having been 
the custom, seemingly, to speak of the species by this 
double name. 



.•U 




Jk.*4tV>fV 



A< 



x\' 







"HjjyiiT.- vsVe^ycSc 



BLACK DUCK OR DUSKY DUCK. 



Anas ohscura Gmel. 



Under the general name ''black duck" are included 
two species and one sub-species so closely alike that 
only a careful comparison will distinguish them. 

They are birds similar in size and form to the mal- 
lard, but very different in color. The black duck is 
brownish-black or dusky, all the feathers edged with 
pale grayish or yellowish. The head and neck are 
streaked with yellowish. Of this there is least on the 
top of the head and the hind neck, which are sometimes 
nearly black ; most on the sides of head and throat. 

93 



94 



DUCK SHOOTING. 



These last are sometimes almost buff, without any 
streaking. The speculum, or iridescent wing patch, 
is sometimes metallic-green and sometimes violet, 
edged with black. The bill is yellowish-green and the 
nail dark, while the feet are orange-red, the webs 
dusky. Length, 22 inches; wing, 11. The sexes are 
essentially alike. 



—j^i*v'."S";»... 




JW«»w*., 



__ _ --^W5«fia(Mj*^_- 




m^. j3 







-=i£5tssiica±Eq2:p_^ 



FLORIDA DUSKY DUCK. 



Anas fulvigiila Ridgw. 



The general color above is brownish-black, as in the 
black duck, but the feathers more widely margined 
with yellowish, giving a generally paler cast to the 
bird. The chin and throat are always plain nnstreaked 
buff, these being finely streaked in the black duck. The 
speculum is green, sometimes tipped with white, which 
may then form a bar across the wing. The bill is olive- 
yellow and there is a triangular spot of black at its 
base, near the angle of the mouth. The legs and feet 
are orange-red. The length is about 20 inches and 
the wing 10. The female is somewhat paler than the 

male. 

95 



96 DUCK SHOOTING. 

The Florida duck is an altot^ether lighter colored 
bird than the dusky duck and there can be no question 
as to its specific distinctness nor of the ease with which 
it may be distinguished if the differential characters 
are borne in mind. These consist ( i ) in the altogether 
paler coloration, the under parts being buff, streaked 
with dusky, instead of the reverse; (2) the plain buff 
cheeks, chin and throat, these parts being thickly 
streaked in the dusky duck; (3) the black spot at base 
of upper mandible, next to C(M-ner of mouth; (4) the 
green instead of violet speculum. 




^S-i^:^^^:- 



m. 






/M, 

w/M 



f^^P-i^>i M^^Si0^si^^s^^ikui, ^i.^^^ll^ll^ 







MOTTLED DUCK. 



Anas fnk'igiila maculosa (Senn.). 



The mottled duck resembles the Florida duck in the 
characters given above, except that the cheeks are 
streaked instead of plain, the speculum violet instead of 
green and the general coloration rather darker — mot- 
tled rather than streaked. It is described by Mr. G. B. 
Sennett as follows : Top of head blackish-brown, mar- 
gined with very pale buff. Chin and throat isabella 
color. Cheeks, buffy white, with narrow streaks of 
dark brown. Feathers of breast, wings, upper parts 
and flanks blackish-brown, margined with pale buff. 
Under parts buffy white, each feather with a broad 

97 



98 DUCK SHOOTING. 

blackish-brown mark near the tip. giving a decidedly 
mottled appearance. Under tail-coverts blackish, with 
onter margins of inner webs reddish-lniff ; those of 
outer webs bnffy white. The four middle tail feathers 
bl-ackish-brown, the others brownish. Under surface 
of all tail feathers light gray. The speculum is metal- 
lic purple, its feathers tipped with white. Length 
about 19 inches, wing 10 inches. 

These three forms are so much alike that it is not 
probable that the average gunner will be able to dis- 
tinguish them apart. They occupy different regions, 
and while their ranges probably overlap, it is not likely 
that the southern forms are ever found much beyond 
the regions which they are known to inhabit. 

The dusky duck, better known as black duck, is the 
commonest of the fresh-water ducks of Eastern Can- 
ada, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and the New Eng- 
land coast, but when it gets as far south as the Chesa- 
peake Bay and North Carolina it finds there its relative, 
the mallard, in numbers as great as its own and as- 
sociates with it on terms of equality. 

The black duck, while feeding almost exclusively in 
fresh water, by no means avoids the sea coast. On 
the contrary, in the New England States it spends most 
of the day resting on the salt water and only visits 
the inland streams, swamps and marshes to feed dur- 
ing the night. In these localities it does not disdain 
such salt-water food as it may pick up, and in the early 
morning at low tide I have seen great flocks of these 



MOTTLED DUCK. 99 

birds feeding on the sand beaches and mud flats off 
Milford, Conn., where their chief food must have been 
the winkles that are so abundant there. 

The black duck is not common in the interior, though 
it has been reported from near York Factory. Dr. 
Yarrow has reported it from Utah, but . these birds 
were perhaps mottled duck {A. f. maculosa) . I, per- 
sonally, have not seen it west of Nebraska, and then 
only on a very few occasions. The specimens then 
noted may have been mottled ducks. It is occa- 
sionally taken in Iowa and Minnesota, but so seldom 
that most duck shooters do not know the species. Oc- 
casionally a man, whose experience extends over 
fifteen or twenty years of gunning there, will say that 
he has seen a bird two or three times. It has been re- 
ported as breeding in great numbers about forty miles 
north of Winnipeg, Manitoba. 

In mild winters the black duck remains throughout 
the season in Massachusetts and Connecticut, but 
sometimes, if the cold is bitter and long-continued, the 
ice covers its customary feeding grounds, and its food 
becoming very scarce, it grows so thin that gunners 
refuse longer to kill it. At such times it sits off shore 
in the sea, or. if the ice extends very far out from the 
shore, upon the ice, and almost starves to death. We 
have once or twice seen birds caught in muskrat traps 
which were nothing more than skeletons covered by 
feathers. 

In New England the black duck is considered one of 
the most acute of all our fowl and is very difficult of 



L.ofC. 



lOO DUCK SHOOTING. 

approach. They usually refuse to notice decoys, and, 
ovvinsf to their keen senses and constant watchfulness, 
are not shot in great numbers. The gunners believe 
that their sense of smell is very keen, and will not at- 
tempt to approach them down the wind, believing that 
the ducks will smell them. 

The black duck rises from the water in the same 
manner as the mallard and its note is not to be dis- 
tinguished from the mallard's. In the Southern States, 
where they feed chiefly on grasses and rice and wild 
celery, they are very delicious, but on the New Eng- 
land coast they are sometimes found to be very inferior 
table birds. 

In the South the black ducks often congregate in 
flocks of several hundred, resorting especially to lit- 
tle flag ponds in the marshes which they especially af- 
fect. Here they appear to have lost much of the sus- 
piciousness which they show further north and often 
come readily to decoys, responding as easily as the mal- 
lard to the (juacking of duck, man or duck call. 

More than almost any of its relatives the black duck 
seems to be a night feeder, and all night long its cries 
may be heard through the marsh ; yet it is, of course, 
well known that all ducks feed at night, especially when 
there is a moon, and the very common belief that the 
black duck does this more than others may be without 
foundation. 

The black duck is frequently domesticated and does 
well in confinement, and it readily interbreeds with 
the mallard, either the wild or the domestic. Domesti- 



MOTTLED DUCK. lOI 

cated birds are frequently used as decoys, and with 
great effect. 

While the black duck breeds chiefly to the north of 
the United States, nevertheless many rear their young 
in Maine, New Hampshire, New York and even as far 
south as North Carolina, though there is, of course, a 
possibility that the birds breeding there may belong to 
the next species. The nest is usually built on the 
ground, concealed in high grass or rushes, and the 
eggs vary in number from six to eleven or twelve. They 
are grayish-white, with a very faint tinge of green. 
Mr. Geo. A. Boardman, of Calais, Me., however, re- 
ports that he once found a dusky duck's nest in a cavity 
of a leaning birch tree about thirty feet high. The 
young, from the time they are newly hatched, are ex- 
pert in hiding, and at the approach of danger make for 
the shore and conceal themselves among the grasses. 

The Florida dusky duck, while very similar to the 
black duck, may easily be distinguished from it if the 
characters already mentioned are kept in mind. The 
general differences are much paler color and absence of 
streaks on the cheeks, chin, throat and fore-neck, be- 
sides a difference in the markings on the bill. This 
bird was long considered to be a pale southern race of 
the black duck, but of late years has been considered 
a valid species. Its range is a very restricted one and 
is confmed apparently to Southern Florida. 

In habits it does not differ greatly from the ordi- 
nary black duck, except so far as its surroundings ne- 
cessitate a dift'erence. During the winter it resorts 



I02 DUCK SnOOTJXG. 

for food to the fresh-water ponds during the day and 
at evening flies to the shores about the islands, where 
the night is spent. The birds mate in late winter and 
early spring and the broods are hatched in April. The 
nest is placed in heavy grass or vegetation, which is 
often so thick as to conceal the eggs. Often the nests 
are placed at the foot of a palmetto or other bush. It is 
said that many of these nests are destroyed by the burn- 
ing of the grass, which takes place each year in certain 
portions of Florida in order to make way for the fresh 
grass for the cattle. 

The eggs of this species are said to be similar to those 
of the ordinary black duck, but are a little paler and not 
quite so large. It is altogether probable that all the 
black ducks killed in Florida may belong to this species. 

The mottled duck described by j\Ir. Sennett as a sub- 
species of the Florida duck, closely resembles it. The 
cheeks, however, are somewhat streaked with brown, as 
in the ordinary black duck, though the throat is un- 
streaked and the general appearance of the bird is 
spotted or mottled rather than streaked. The difference 
in coUrr of the speculum in these three forms of black 
duck is a real one, and of importance. It denotes the 
average effect of color independent of changes due to 
the angle at which the light strikes them. 

Very little is known about the habits of this sub- 
species, which appears to be confined to Eastern Texas 
and Louisiana, and to extend its range north as far as 
Kansas. 



^•iil}l|l|l|i!\;'i(;fr^, "'('/- , 




GADWALL. 



Anas St rep era Linn. 



The general colors of the gadwall duck are gray, 
most of the feathers being nearly white, crossed by nar- 
row bars of black or blackish brown. In the adult male 
the head and neck are pale brownish- white, thickly 
speckled with black or blackish-brown. The top of the 
head and back of neck are often rusty brown and the 
throat is yellowish, sometimes dotted with brown. The 
breast and back are buff, or nearly white, marked with 
dark slate brown or even black bars. The back, scap- 
ular feathers and sides, white, with cross bars of black ; 
the lower part of the back still darker, changing to ab- 
solute black on the upper tail-coverts. The long scap- 

103 



I04 DUCK SHOOTING. 

ular or shoulder feathers are fringed with reddish- 
brown ; the greater coverts at the bend of the wing 
bright chestnut. Specuhim white, edged beneath with 
velvety black, and with broad patch of same in front, be- 
tween the white and the chestnut. Belly and under tail- 
coverts black ; tail gray, fading to white at the edges ; 
the rest of the under parts white. The bill is bluish-black 
and the legs and feet yellow, with dusky webs. The 
adult female is much like the male, except that she is 
duller throughout and she generally lacks the black of 
the full plumaged male. Usually there is no chestnut on 
the wing, but the speculum is white and the bird may 
be known from any other fresh-water ducks by this 
character. The young are still more dull in color. 
Often the speculum is indistinct, but there is usually 
enough of it, with the bill, to identify the species. Mr. 
Gurdon Trumbull was the first to call attention to the 
presence in highly plumaged males of a well-defined 
black ring, extending almost around the neck, between 
the lighter feathers of the head and neck and the 
darker ones of the breast. 

The gadwall duck is distributed over almost the 
whole northern hemisphere, being found alike in Eu- 
rope, Asia, Africa and North America. At the same 
time it is not an abundant bird anywhere, apparently 
never occurring in large flocks nor even in frequent 
small ones. 

In North America, however, its distribution is gen- 
eral, but is chiefly westward. Still it has been found 
breeding on the island of Anticosti, in the Gulf of St, 



GADWALL. 105 

Lawrence, New England and Long Island, and to the 
south of this, generally along the Atlantic coast. A 
female was captured in Bermuda in 1849. 

The gadwall is not uncommon in Illinois, Minne- 
sota and generally through the Mississippi Valley, and 
formerly bred to some extent over the whole country. 
It is said to be common in California in winter and 
has been taken on the Pacific coast of Mexico, as well 
as in British Columbia. Its chief breeding grounds, 
however, appear to be north of the United States, al- 
though no doubt to some extent it passes the summer 
in the high mountains of the main range from Colorado 
northward. 

The male gadwall is a very handsome bird, particu- 
larly striking in his combination of quiet yet effective 
colors. There are some things about the species which 
remind cne strongly of the widgeon. Often a large 
flock of widgeons may include a small number of gad- 
walls, and often the gunner will see from his blind a 
small flock of birds approaching him, which at first he 
imagines to be widgeons, but which, when they have 
come closer, prove gadwalls. 

It is difficult to understand why the gadwall is so 
scarce a bird. It is true that in his ornithological re- 
port of the Survey of the Fortieth Parallel Mr. Ridg- 
way tells us that he found it by far the most numerous 
duck during the breeding season in Western Nevada, 
where, in the valley of the Truckee River from the base 
of the Sierra Nevada Mountains to Pyramid Lake, it 
outnumbered all other species together. Yet there ap- 



I06 DUCK SHOOTING. 

pears to be no region known where it occurs in great 
tlocks, like those better known species with which it 
commonly associates, as the widgeon and the pintail, 
and, by comparison with other species, gadwalls are 
very seldom killed. So far as we know, this bird ought 
to be on the increase. It seems to differ from most 
ducks in not being gregarious and in preferring to keep 
in pairs or very small companies, perhaps made up of 
the members of a single family. It pays little atten- 
tion to decoys, and, in my experience, seldom comes to 
them, although occasionally shot when flying by. 

The gadwall has a number of common names, of 
which two of the most familiar are gray duck, applied 
also to two other species, and creek duck, which is 
used along the Atlantic coast. Besides this it is known 
as speckle-belly, from the dark markings often seen on 
the under plumage; blaten duck, which is nearly a 
translation of its Latin name ; Welsh drake and German 
duck, given by Giraud and probably now obsolete. Its 
similarity to the widgeon is indicated by its names, 
widgeon and gray widgeon, used along the southern 
Atlantic coast, and in England it is sometimes called 
sand widgeon. 

The nest of the gadwall is built on the ground and is 
a mere depression, lined with dried grass or leaves, and 
sometimes with down. It is usually near the water's 
edge and well concealed. The eggs are of a pale creamy 
vellow. 




EUROPEAN WIDGEON. 



Alias p end ope Linn. 



This species, so familiar in the Old World, is a not un- 
common straggler in North America. It has heen killed 
in so many different places that it is important that it 
should be described here. In the adult male in autumn 
and winter the head and sides of neck are bright rufous, 
almost the color of the head of the male redhead, but 
without the metallic gloss, or still more like the head of 
the male green-winged teal. The forehead and crown of 
head are white, often shaded with rufous, so as to be 
cream color or even pinkish. The chin is white ; throat 
and part of the front of the neck black. Often there is 

107 



I08 DUCK SHOOTING. 

a cluster of small blackish or greenish feathers behind 
the eye and on the back of the head, and sometimes 
the sides of the head are minutely streaked with dusky. 
The breast is purplish gray ; the sides, flanks and back 
waved with cross-bars of black and white, the effect 
being somewhat like that of the same parts in the male 
green-winged teal. The tertiaries, or long feathers 
growing from the third bone of the wing, are gray on 
their inner webs and velvety-black, edged with white 
on the outer. The wing-coverts are white and the spec- 
ulum or wing-patch brilliant metallic green, sometimes 
changing to black at the extremity. The upper and 
lower tail-coverts are black, the other under parts white, 
the wings and tail brown, the tail often edged with 
white. The bill is bluish, its nail black, and the legs and 
feet gray. The length is about i8 inches, wing be- 
tween lo and II inches. 

In the female the head and neck are yellowish-red, 
dotted witli black or greenish spots and sometimes the 
top of the head is altogether black. The general color 
of the upper parts is brown, the feathers being edged 
and barred with whitish. The wing-coverts, instead 
of being white, are merely tipped with white, while 
the speculum is dull black or even in the young some- 
times grayish. The under parts are white, as in the 
male. 

The female of the European widgeon is not always 
to be easily distinguished from certain plumages of the 
American bird, but its bill and general aspect will al- 
ways identify it as a widgeon, and a specimen about 



EUROPEAN WIDGEON. 



109 



which there is any doubt should always be preserved 
for submission to an ornithologist. 

This species belongs to the Old World, yet has been 
found over much of the New. It occurs regularly in 
Alaska and breeds there, and, no doubt, it is due to this 
fact that it has been killed in California, Illinois, New 
York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and Florida. 
I have killed it in North Carolina, but it occurs there 
so seldom that it is not at all known to gunners, and 
my boatman when he picked up this bird took it at first 
for a redhead and after\\ard for a hybrid. 

Its habits, as observed in the Old World, do not 
greatly differ from those of the American widgeon, 
and it is said to be as numerous in certain parts of Eu- 
rope as our bird is here. 

During the molting season the male loses his bright 
colors, which, however, are regained in the early fall. 




■^:~.s.- 




AMERICAN WIDGEON, BALD-PATE. 



Alias auicricana Gmel. 



The male bald-pate has the forehead and crown of the 
head white, margined on either side from the eyes to 
the back of the head by a broad band of metallic green, 
the two bands meeting behind and sometimes run- 
ning a little way down the neck. The head in front of 
the eyes and the sides and upper neck are white, thickly 
dotted with black. The throat is nearly white ; the 
lower neck, fore-breast, back and sides lavender or 
purplish-gray, sometimes quite rich. The feathers of 
the sides are cross-barred with fine lines of black ; the 
back is finelv waved with lines of paler, changing to 

110 



AMERICAN WIDGEON. 1 1 1 

distinct lines of blackish and white on the lower back; 
the upper and under tail-coverts glossy black ; the tail 
brownish-gray ; the wing-coverts broadly white, some 
of them tipped with black, so as to make a black bar 
across the wing. The speculum is green and black ; the 
lower breast and belly white, which extends up on the 
sides of the rump. The bill is light bluish, with a black 
tip, and the feet are somewhat darker, with still darker 
webs. 

This is the color of the most highly plumaged males, 
and from this there are all gradations down to the 
much duller female, which entirely lacks the green head- 
patch, the large white wing-patch, and in which the 
speculum is very much duller, being merely blackish, 
with a white border in front. The general aspect of the 
female is streaked and speckled with blackish brown and 
whitish, becoming darker on the breast and sides of 
body. The upper parts are grayish and the under parts 
nearly white, the under tail-coverts being barred with 
black and white. Young males usually have the breast 
purplish-gray, the speculum brilliant, and traces of 
white wing-coverts. 

The bald-pate or widgeon is widely distributed 
throughout America and is found in winter as far south 
as Mexico and even Central America. It is an occa- 
sional straggler to Europe, but is found there only by 
accident. At the present day it is merely a winter vis- 
itor to the United States, except in certain portions of 
the \\'est, where a few widgeons may still breed on the 
high central plateau or on the flanks of the Rockv 



112 DiCK SHOOTING. 

]\Ionntains. It is not commonly found in New Eng- 
land, yet Mr. Boardman has reported it as found near 
Calais, Me., and it occurs occasionally on Long Island. 
Further to the south, however, in Chesapeake Bay and 
on the coasts of North and South Carolina, it is a com- 
mon bird in winter, occurring in great flocks and 
eagerly sought after for its flesh, which is very highly 
esteemed. 

The widgeons reach the United States usually in the 
month of October, and great numbers of them winter 
in the vSouthern States. On the Atlantic coast they are 
constantly found associated with other species of fresh- 
water ducks, as well as with the canvas-backs and the 
redheads. It is said that they especially seek the com- 
pany of the canvas-backs when these are feeding, and 
that they rob them of the grasses and celery which 
they bring up from great depths, which the widgeons 
could never reach. At all events it is certain that they 
associate with the canvas-backs, and no doubt they 
feed largely on the leaves of the plants of which the 
canvas-backs eat the roots. Certain it is that at these 
times and in these places the flesh of the widgeon is so 
excellent that it cannot be distinguished from that of its 
larger and more famous companion. 

The widgeon is regarded as one of the shyest of our 
ducks. Of it Mr. D. G; Elliot, in his admirable book 
on the "Wild Fowl of North America," says: "The 
widgeon is one of the wariest of our ducks, suspicious 
of everything, and not only is unwilling to approach 
any spot or object of which it is afraid, but by keeping 



AMERICAN WIDGEON. 1 13 

up a continuous whistling alarms all the other ducks 
in the vicinity and consequently renders itself very dis- 
agreeable and at times a considerable nuisance to the 
sportsman. However, its flesh is so tender and palat- 
able and it is such a pretty and gamy bird that one is 
inclined to forgive many of its apparent shortcomings. 
The usual note of this duck is a low, soft whistle, very 
melodious in quality, and when on the wing the mem- 
bers of a flock keep continually talking to each other in 
this sweet tone as they speed along. They fly very rap- 
idly and usually high in the air in a long, outstretched 
line, all abreast, except perhaps the two ends are a little 
behind the center bird, who may be considered the 
leader. When only moving from place to place in the 
marsh, and but a short distance above the ground, they 
proceed usually without any order or regularity, re- 
minding one sometimes of a flock of pigeons. The 
pinions are moved with much quickness and the long 
primaries give a sharp-pointed shape to the wing that 
causes the birds to be easily recognized. Flocks com- 
posed of a number of widgeon and sprig-tail are often 
seen, and the combination is a very unfavorable one to 
a sportsman hoping for a quiet shot at close range. 

"As the birds approach the decoys some widgeon will 
whistle and edge out to one side, as much as to say, Tt 
may be all right, but I don't like the looks of it,' and he 
will be followed by another suspicious member. Then 
the pintails become uneasy and begin to climb and look 
down into the blind, and the patient watcher sees the 
flocks too often sheer off to one side and pass by. But 



114 DUCK SHOOTING. 

should there be some birds present, as often happens, 
which are heedless of all warnings or suspicious utter- 
ings, and keep steadily on^ with the evident intention to 
settle among their supposed brethren, then, as they 
gather together preparatory to alighting and the sports- 
man rises in his ambush, suddenly the air is filled with 
darting, climbing birds, who shoot ofif in every direc- 
tion, but generally upward as if the flock was blown 
asunder, and all disappear with a celerity that is aston- 
ishing, and, to a nervous sportsman, with results that 
are mortifying." 

Notwithstanding this watchfulness, widgeons often 
come very nicely to decoys, and a passing flock, espe- 
cially if it be small, may frequently be turned from its 
course by a low, soft whistle and will swing into the de- 
coys and drop in a series of beautiful curves until they 
are almost over them. Then, however, the gunner must 
waste no time in selecting his bird and holding properly 
on it, for the widgeon is able to get out of danger with 
considerable speed. 

This species is extremely common in California, 
where it is eagerly sought after. In the Mississippi 
Valley region it is not so abundant nor so greatly 
esteemed, for there the mallard, on account of its 
greater size, is preferred. 

The breeding grounds of the widgeon include the 
whole of British America and Alaska, but its summer 
home is rather in the western portion of North Amer- 
ica and away from the seacoast. The eggs are creamy 
white in color. 



AMERICAN WIDGEON. 



II 



Among the names given by Mr. Gurdon Trumbull, 
in his excellent work so frequently referred to, are 
green-headed widgeon, bald-head, southern widgeon, 
California widgeon, white-belly and poacher. Other 
names are bald- face, bald-crown, wheat duck and smok- 
ing duck. 



.y ,'' 




nm%i%f£TT''/mT''^'''m^''^ 




EUROPEAN TEAL. 
Anas crccca Linn. 

This is a European species, occurring only casually 
in North America. It \ ery closely resembles the com- 
mon green-winged teal, but lacks the white bar on the 
side of the breast, has the black and white markings of 
the back and sides much heavier, has the inner webs of 
the outer scapular and sometimes part of the outer 
webs, white or yellowish, and the forehead bordered on 
cither side by a pale-buff line. The female is so sim- 
ilar to the female green-winged teal that only an ex- 
pert ornithologist can distinguish between the two. The 
European teal is found occasionally in the Aleutian 
Islands, and it has freciuently been exposed for sale in 
the New York markets with other ducks shot in the 

116 



EUROPEAN TEAL. 



117 



neighborhood. The most important distinguishing 
mark between these two very similar birds is the white 
bar on each side of the breast, which is so noticeable in 
our green-winged teal, but absent in the European 
species. 

European observers tell us that this teal is abundant 
over the Old World ; that it breeds in Great Britain and 
Ireland and is common over Lapland, Russia and 
Northern Asia. It is readily domesticated. 





^S:^gg!^fa^i-^-^^^3^=7^^.^i|;£;^^^^r^5^ 



GREEN-WINGED TEAL. 



Anas caroUnensis Gmel. 



The adult male has the head and neck reddish-chest- 
nut and a broad band of metallic green on either side, 
running from the eye to the back of the neck, where 
the two meet in a tuft. The under side of this green 
band is margined with a narrow line of buff ; the chin 
is black ; the breast is reddish cream-color, dotted 
with round or oval spots of jet black. There is a collar 
round the lower part of the neck ; the sides of the 
breast, back of lower neck and of the body are finely 
waved with lines of black upon white ground. The back 
is similarly marked and the lower back is brownish- 
gray. The upper tail-coverts are dark, margined with 

118 



GREEN-IVIXGED TEAL. IK) 

white, and the tail feathers gray, edged with white. On 
the side of the breast, in front of the bend of the wing, 
is a broad white bar. The tips of the last row of wing- 
coverts are margined with yellowish. The speculum is 
black and green, margined with white. The outer 
scapulars are velvety-black. The belly and a patch on 
either side of the under tail-coverts are rich buff, the 
under tail-coverts black. The bill is dark, nearly black, 
and the feet grayish-black. The length is about 14^ 
inches. 

The female is brownish, the feathers being gener- 
ally margined with buff. The sides of head are whit- 
ish, speckled with brownish. The wing is like that 
of the male, but the speculum is somewhat smaller 
and duller. The breast is usually more or less spotted 
and the under parts are white, with faint indications of 
spots. 

The green-winged teal is found over the whole of 
North America, from the Arctic Sea on the north to 
the Gulf of Mexico and Central America on the south. 
It occurs also in Cuba. It is one of the most beautiful 
of our ducks and is highly esteemed by gunners. 

Unlike many of our better known fresh-water ducks, 
the green-winged teal is rather common in New Eng- 
land, as well as in the interior and to the southward, 
and wherever found it is a great favorite. It flies with 
astonishing speed, but with great steadiness, and often 
the flocks are of very great size and fly so closely 
bunched together that they resemble more a flock of mi- 
grating blackbirds than of ducks. At such times, if 



I20 DUCK SHOOTING. 

they suddenly become aware of the presence of the 
gunner, the bunch flies apart like an exploding bomb 
and the birds dart in all directions and at such a rate 
that it takes a quick shooting to catch them. On the 
other hand, if the shots can be fired into this close mass 
the havoc created is very great ; ten, twenty or thirty 
birds sometimes bemg killed by the discharge of two 
barrels. 

While the green-winged teal is much at home 
on the water and is a good diver in times of danger, it 
is also very much at home on the land, over which it 
runs with considerable speed. 

Although this species breeds chiefly to the north of 
the United States, its nests have been taken in Wiscon- 
sin, Iowa and on the prairies and in the mountains of 
the West. I have seen it in Montana, Wyoming and 
Colorado, accompanied by young, and I recall one oc- 
casion in North Park, Colorado, where I spent a very 
pleasant half hour watching an old female and her 
young as they busily fed in the narrow stream near 
where I sat. The mother bird at length discovered me, 
and though not greatly alarmed, she promptly led her 
flock of eight tiny young ashore, where, in a long line, 
with the mother at the head, they promptly trotted into 
the bushes and concealed themselves. 

The green-wing is a more hardy bird than the blue- 
winged teal and is often found on warm springs and 
streams in the North long after the ice has closed most 
of the quiet waters. T have seen it in Connecticut in the 
early winter, when almost everything was frozen up. 



GREEN-WINGED TEAL. 



121 



The nest of the teal is commonly placed not far 
from the water, in high grass or sometimes among a 
tussock of rye grass, or I have even found it on top of a 
dry ridge, under a sage hrush at quite a long distance 
from any stream. The eggs are small and apparently a 
little rounder than duck eggs usually are. The number 
in a nest varies from ten to fifteen. 





BLUE-WINGED TEAL. 



Anas disc or s Linn. 



The adult male has the top of the head and t;ie chin 
black ; a white crescent-shaped band, edged with black, 
extends from the forehead above the eye down to be- 
low the bill ; the rest of the head is dark lead-color, 
sometimes with glossy purplish reflections. The long 
scapulars ruiniing back from the shoulder are black, 
streaked with buff. The back and upper parts gener- 
ally, dark brown and dull black, spotted, barred and 
streaked with buff. The lower back is dull brown ; the 
smaller wing-coverts at the bend of the wing sky-blue, 
as are also some of the long shoulder feathers. A wide 
bar of white across the wing, above the speculum, which 
is green, separates the blue and the green. There is a 

122 



BLUE-WINGED TEAL. 1 23 

narrow line of white at the extremity of the speculum 
and a patch on either side of the tail. The lower parts 
are light chestnut, thickly speckled with black. The 
under tail-coverts are black, as is also the bill. The 
eyes, legs and feet are yellow, the latter with dusky 
markings. 

The female is always to be known by the blue mark- 
ings on the wing, though the brilliant green speculum 
is often wanting. The chin, throat and base of the bill 
are white, marked with blackish, and the head and neck 
streaked and speckled with dusky brown. The other 
parts are dark brown, speckled with dusky brown. The 
bird is slightly larger than the green-winged teal. 

The blue-winged teal is often called summer teal, and 
this gives a hint as to one of its habits. It is apparently 
a bird of more southern distribution than the other 
teals and is almost the earliest of the migrating ducks 
to make its appearance. The first to arrive are com- 
monly found on our streams in late August or early 
September, and persons who are pushing through the 
marshes in search of rail very frequently start little 
bunches of blue-wings from the open places. It may be 
imagined that such birds have not come from a great 
distance. Indeed, the blue-winged teal breeds at many 
points in the West, and would do so more frequently 
were the birds permitted to make their northward mi- 
gration without being disturbed by gunners. 

The blue-wing is common throughout Eastern Amer- 
ica, but in the West its place is chiefly taken by the cin- 
namon teal, a closely related species. In its northward 



124 DUCK SHOOTING. 

migrations the bine-winged teal is fonnd summering on 
the Great Slave Lake, and Mr. Dall tells of having seen 
it on the Yukon, and it has been reported from other 
points in .Vlaska. It breeds also in Northern New Eng- 
land, as well as near the prairie sloughs of some of the 
States of the Central West. The nest is placed on the 
ground, among reeds and grasses, and is usually, but 
not always, near the water. It is lined with down from 
the mother's breast, and when she leaves the nest she 
covers the eggs with this down and over it places more 
or less grass. The number of eggs is said to be from 
eight to twelve. 

During the winter these birds reach Mexico and 
Central America and are commonly found in Florida 
and the Gulf States. They feed in great numbers in 
the southern rice fields, where they are reported to be 
caught in great numbers by means of traps set by the 
negroes. Teal are abundant in the low country about 
the mouth of the Mississippi, where they are known to 
the Creoles as printannierre and autonnierre, according 
to the season in which they are seen. 

The teal frequently travel in very large flocks, and the 
speed with which they move and the closeness with 
which they are huddled together have become proverbial 
among gunners. They come up readily to decoys and 
not infrequently a large flock may come in without 
warning to a heedless gunner and drop down among 
his stools before he sees them. When he stands up to 
shoot, the teal leave the water as the mallard does, by a 
single spring, and dart away in all directions, coming 



BLUE-IVINGED TEAL. 



I2S 



together again and going on in a close bunch. If a 
flock is seen flying by, they may sometimes be attracted 
by a soft, hsping note, and if they see the decoys they 
are hkely to drop in among them. The blue-winged 
teal is fond of running about over mud flats and sifting 
them for food, and in localities where they are abund- 
ant a place such as this is one of the very best in which 
tt) tie out for them. 

As with the green-wing so with this species — great 
numbers may be killed by the single discharge of a gun, 
provided it is properly aimed. Audubon speaks of 
having seen eighty-four birds killed by the single dis- 
charge of a double-barreled gun. 





CINNAMON TEAL. 



Anas cyanoptcra Vieill. 



In the adult male the top of the head is blackish- 
brown, while the rest of the head, the neck and lower 
parts are bright chestnut. This color grows darker on 
the belly, until it is quite black on the under tail-coverts. 
The scapulars, or shoulder feathers, and a part of the 
back, are chestnut, the feathers having paler edges and 
the long ones a buff central stripe ; these are also barred 
with black. The smaller wing-coverts and the outer 
webs of some of the scapulars are sky-blue. The middle 
coverts are dark, tipped with white, and the speculum is 
dark metallic green. The tail is blackish, the bill is 
black, the eyes yellow or orange and the feet are bright 
yellow, with touches of dusky. The female is very much 

126 




w .« 

^ o 

^ xi 

W 3 

■^ < 

o 

W ^ 

2 -a 



CINNAMON TEAL. 1 27 

like the female blue-winged teal, but is larger and some- 
what more richly colored. The belly is usually dis- 
tinctly spotted. Length, 17 inches; wing, 7^ inches. 

The cinnamon teal is a western species. It is rarely 
found as far east as the Mississippi Valley, though it has 
been taken in Florida, but such birds are mere accidental 
wanderers. The cinnamon teal becomes abundant after 
the main Continental Divide is crossed and is a common, 
breeder and migrant all through the Rocky INIountains 
and in California. In summer it is found as far north 
as the Columbia River, and probably breeds freely all 
through the Western United States, I have found its 
nest in Wyoming placed under a small sage bush, 
thirty or forty yards from a little mountain stream 
that was nearly dry. It had eleven eggs, ivory-white 
in color, and there was no down in the nest nor any 
appreciable lining. 

In his account of the cinnamon teal, published in the 
"Birds of the Northwest," Dr. Coues paints one of 
those charming word pictures which make his writings 
such delightful reading as well for sportsmen as for 
naturalists. He says of it : "I never think of the bird 
without recalling scenes in which it was a prominent 
figure. I have in mind a picture of the headwaters of 
the Rio Verde, in November, just before winter had 
fairly set in, although frosts had already touched the 
foliage and dressed every tree and bush in gorgeous 
colors. The atmosphere showed a faint yellow haze 
and was heavy with odors — souvenirs of departing 
flowers. The sap of the trees coursed sluggishly, no 



T28 DUCK SHOOTING. 

longer lending elastic vigor to the limbs, that now 
cracked and broke when forced apart ; the leaves 
loosened their hold, for want of the same mysterious 
tie, and fell in showers where the (faail rustled over their 
withering forms. Woodpeckers rattled with exultation 
against the resounding bark and seemed to know of 
the greater store for them now in the nerveless, drowsy 
trees that resisted the chisel less stoutly than when they 
were full of juicy life. Ground squirrels worked hard, 
gathering the last seeds and nuts to increase their win- 
ter's store, and cold-blooded reptiles dragged their stif- 
fening joints to bask in sunny spots and stimulate the 
slow current of circulation before they should with- 
draw and sink into torpor. Wildfowl came flocking 
from their northern breeding places — among them 
thousands of teal — hurtling overhead and plashing in 
the waters they were to enliven and adorn all winter. 

"The upper parts of both forks of the Verde are 
filled with beavers that have dammed the streams at 
short intervals and transformed them in some places 
into a succession of pools, where the teal swim in still 
water. Other wildfowl join them, such as mallards, 
pintails and green-wings, disporting together. The ap- 
proach to the open waters is difficult in most places 
from the rank growths, first of shrubbery and next of 
reeds, that fringe the open banks ; in other places, where 
the stream narrows in precipitous gorges, from the al- 
most inaccessible rocks. But these difficulties over- 
come, it is a pleasant sight to see the birds before us — 
perhaps within a few paces if we have very carefully 



CINNAMON TEAL. 1 29 

crawled through the rushes to the verge — fancying 
themselves perfectly secure. Some may be quietly pad- 
dling in and out of the sedge on the other side, daintily 
picking up the floating seeds that were shaken down 
when the wind rustled through, stretching up to gather 
those still hanging or to pick ofif little creatures from 
the seared stalks. Perhaps a flock is floating idly in mid- 
stream, some asleep, with the head resting close on the 
back and the bill buried in the plumage. Some others 
swim vigorously along, with breasts deeply immersed, 
tasting the water as they go, straining it through their 
bills to net minute insects, and gabbling to each other 
their sense of perfect enjoyment. But let them appear 
never so careless, they are quick to catch the sound of 
coming danger and take alarm ; they are alert in an in- 
stant ; the next incautious movement or snapping of a 
twig startles them ; a chorus of quacks, a splashing of 
feet, a whistling of wings, and the whole company is off. 
He is a good sportsman who stops them then, for the 
stream twists about, the reeds confuse and the birds are 
out of sight almost as soon as seen. 

"Much as elsewhere, I presume, the duck hunter has 
to keep his wits about him and be ready to act at very 
short notice ; but there is double necessity on the Verde. 
The only passages along the stream are Indian trails, 
here always warpaths. In retaliation for real or fan- 
cied wrongs — or partly, at least, from inherent dispo- 
sition — these savages spend most of their time in wan- 
dering about in hopes of plunder and murder; this, 
too, against each other, so long as the tribes are not 



130 DUCK SHOOTING. 

leagued in common cause against a common enemy. 
On the day I have in mind more particularly we passed 
a spot where lay the bodies of several Apaches. From 
the arrows still sticking in them we judged afterward 
that they had been killed by a stray band of Xavajos. 
But this was not what we thought most about at the 
time. We were only four together and this was close by 
the place we designed to spend the day in hunting and 
fishing. Contemplation of the decaying Indians was not 
calculated to raise our spirits, for though, of course, we 
knew the danger beforehand and meant to take our 
chances, it was not pleasant to have the thing brought 
up in such a way. We kept on through the canyon a 
little more cautiously, talked a little more seriously and 
concluded to look for game in places where there was 
the least likelihood of an ambuscade. I confess that 
the day's sport was rather too highly spiced to be alto- 
gether enjoyable, and suspect that others shared my 
uncomfortable conviction of foolhardiness. However, 
the day passed without further intimation of danger. 
Game was plenty and the shooting good. Out of the 
woods and with a good bag, we were disposed and could 
better afford to laugh at each other's fears." 

The habits of the red-breasted teal do not differ 
markedly from that of the eastern relative, which it so 
closely resembles. 

The true home of this species seems to be in Southern 
North America and South America, and it is found in 
Chili, Patagonia and the Falkland Islands. It is a bird 
that gives great shooting to western sportsmen. 







SHOVELLER. 



Spatula clypeata (Linn.). 



The male shoveller has the head and the upper neck 
very dark glossy green, with violet reflections, an en- 
tirely different color from that of the mallard, almost 
black. The lower neck and breast are white; belly 
and sides rich chestnut brown. The under tail-coverts 
and vent are black, bordered by a gray line, a patch of 
white at either side of the rump. The back is dusky 
brown; the upper tail-coverts black; the long scapu- 
lars, or shoulder feathers, streaked with black and 
white; the wing-coverts are light blue, the last row 
tipped with white, forming a narrow band across the 
wing, and back of this is a bright green speculum nar- 

131 



132 DUCK SHOOTING. 

rowly bordered by white. The tail is whitish, blotched 
with brownish-gray. The expanded bill is black, the 
eyes yellow and the feet orange-red. 

The female is colored very much as is the female 
mallard, but has the blue wing-coverts and the green 
speculum. The belly is sometimes pure white. The 
bill is orange or brown, often speckled with black. The 
feet are orange. Length, about 19 inches; wing, 9 to 
10 inches. 

Young males of different ages have the plumage 
generally like the female, but as they grow older the 
head and neck are mottled with black and the under 
parts are often chestnut. Whatever the plumage, the 
shoveller may be recognized by the great expansion of 
the bill toward the tip, which gives it the name spoon- 
bill. This bill has a fringe of very slender, close-set 
lamellae, which are long yet flexible, and are admirably 
adapted to the process of sifting out food from the fine 
soft mud in which the shoveller delights to feed. 

This species is one of the most widely distributed of 
all the ducks, being found throughout the whole of the 
northern hemisphere. In North America it is nowhere 
a very abundant duck, but, at the same time, is fre- 
quently met with throughout the South and West ; yet 
it never appears in great flocks, as do the black duck, 
mallard, widgeon and the teals, but rather in small, oc- 
casional companies, though I have seen a flock number- 
ing nearly a hundred. This, however, is unusual. 

On the New England coast and Long Island the 
shoveller is quite an uncommon bird, but further to the 



SHOVELLER. 1 33 

southward, as in Maryland and North CaroHna, it is 
frequently killed. In many of its ways, as, of course, 
in its appearance in some respects, it resembles the teals, 
but it is much less gregarious in its habits. The shov- 
eller breeds from Texas to Alaska, and I have fre- 
quently found the nests in Dakota, Montana and Wyo- 
ming, usually near prairie lakes, often under a bunch 
of rye grass or a sage brush and usually fairly well con- 
cealed. There are usually a few feathers and some down 
in the nest, which contains eight or ten greenish-white 
eggs. The female sits close, but when startled from 
her nest flies away without sound and soon disappears. 

The young, when first hatched, do not show the pe- 
culiar shape of the bill possessed by the adult, this being 
a later development. Young birds of the first season, 
when killed in the fall, will be found to have the bill 
very flexible, so that it can be bent in every direction. 
The shoveller is a fine table bird, but because of the 
small numbers that are killed it is not very well known. 

Mr. Trumbull gives as the names for this bird the 
blue-winged shoveller, red-breasted shoveller, shovel- 
bill, broady, butler duck — "the bird being so called be- 
cause of its spoon-like bill, and with reference to a well- 
known general in the civil war" — cow-frog, spoon-billed 
widgeon, spoon-billed teal, mud-shoveller and swaddle- 
bill. In Louisiana the bird is known as mesquin. The 
note of the shoveller is a weak quack, somewhat like 
that of the green-winged teal. 



f#piiiiifl)S''iHPlf'!iSli3'5iiS!§^ 



ill SI 




PINTAIL. 



Daiila acuta (Linn.). 



The male pintail has the head and upper neck wood 
brown, darkest on the crown, often with greenish, red- 
dish and purple reflections. A part of the hind neck is 
black; lower down it becomes grayish, finely barred 
with dusky, gray and white. The front of back and sides 
are waved with very fine cross bars of white and black. 
Most of the wing is gray or brownish. The speculum 
is green, in some lights coppery, margined with white, 
tawny and black, and with a cinnamon-colored bar in 
front. A line beginning at the back of the head and 
passing down the side of neck is white, running into the 

134 



PINTAIL. 135 

white of the fore-neck and under parts. The long 
feathers growing from the third bone of the wing are 
pale gray, with a black strip down the middle. The 
long scapulars, or shoulder feathers, are black, edged 
with whitish. The upper and under tail-coverts are 
black, touched with white on the outside, forming a 
line of white. The tail feathers are mostly gray and 
brown, but the long central pair, which are narrow and 
pointed, and extend far beyond the others, are black. 
The bill is bluish-gray, eyes brown, and the legs and 
feet gray. Length, 26-30 inches; wing, over 10 inches. 

The female is one of the plain grayish ducks, resem- 
bling in a general way the female mallard, or the female 
green-winged teal. The ground color of the upper 
parts is rusty or whitish, streaked with dusky or brown- 
ish. The chin and throat are whitish ; the wing-coverts 
brownish-gray, edged with white. The under parts are 
white, streaked with dusky. The bird is always to be 
distinguished by its bill and its feet. 

The pintail ib a bird of wide distribution, inhabiting 
the whole of the northern hemisphere, from Alaska on 
the west to Japan and Northern Kamschatka on the 
east. In America it is found all over the country, at dif- 
ferent seasons of the year, from ocean to ocean, and 
from the shores of the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic Sea. 
In winter it is found in Cuba also. Although breeding 
in Alaska, on the Mackenzie River, and in Greenland, it 
is also a summer resident of the Western United States, 
and breeds in considerable numbers in Dakota, Idaho, 
Montana and Wyoming. I have found their nests there 



136 DUCK SHOOTING. 

in the middle of June, the young not yet having made 
their appearance. 

The pintail is not very abundant in autumn on the 
New England coast, though it is found occasionally in 
Maine and Massachusetts, and in somewhat greater 
abundance in Connecticut, where it is known as pheas- 
ant. On Long Island it is more common during the 
migrations, and when we reach the coast of Virginia 
and North Carolina it is one of the abundant ducks. 
Here it often associates with the mallard and black 
duck, and when the birds fly to and fro from their feed- 
ing grounds, a small bunch may contain four or five 
mallards, two or three black ducks and an equal number 
of pintails. On the other hand, little flocks made up 
only of pintails are often seen. 

In the first volume of the "Water Birds" Dr. Brewer 
gives the following abridgment of Mr. Kennicott's ac- 
count of the pintail in the north : "The summer home 
of the pintail is within the Arctic region, farther to 
the northward than that of any other of our fresh- 
water ducks, comparatively few breeding south of 
Great Slave Lake. In their spring migrations to the 
northward they move in immense flocks, which only dis- 
perse upon their arrival at their breeding grounds. A 
few reach that lake about May i . but the main body ar- 
rive about a week or so later, and mostly pass directly 
on across the lake to the northward. On the Yukon 
the first specimens were seen in the latter part of April, 
and before the lOth of May they had arrived in im- 
mense flocks, which remained some time together in 



PINTAIL. 137 

that vicinity before passing farther north or separating" 
to breed. At this time the birds were fat, and their 
flesh dehcious, much superior to that of any other 
duck, except the widgeon. At the Yukon the pintails 
are the latest in nesting of any of the fresh-water ducks, 
and generally hatch a week or two after the mallard. 
He found them breeding in the same grounds and at 
about the same time, with Fulix affinis, though they do 
not associate with that species. He always found their 
nests in low but dry ground, under the shelter of trees 
or bushes, though never among thick, large trees, and 
not more than two or three rods from water. They 
never build on hummocks in the water, nor on high 
land, but always just upon the edge of a marsh or lake. 
The nest is usually placed at the foot of a willow, 
among grass rather than leaves or moss, and is ex- 
tremely simple, being composed of merely a few bits of 
broken dry grass and sticks, but well lined with down. 
The eggs are from seven to nine in number, and rather 
small in size." 

Mr. E. W. Nelson, whose studies of northern birds 
are so interesting, has given a graphic account of the 
breeding habits of the pintail, and, among other things, 
calls attention to an act by this duck curiously similar 
to the well-known drumming of the snipe. The bird 
falls from a great height, with wings held stiff and 
curved, and producing a sound which at first is low, but 
gradually grows louder, until, as the bird reaches the 
ground in its diagonal fall, the sound becomes very 
loud. A man who has had a bunch of canvas-backs or 



138 



DUCK SHOOTING. 



black-heads sweep down over him as they prepare to 
alight, can well imagine what this sound is like. The 
cry of the pintail in autumn and winter is a low, lisping 
whistle, but at other times it is said to utter a sound 
something like the quack of the mallard, and also one 
similar to the rolling note produced by the black-head. 

The pintail is quite a shy bird ; its usual flight is high 
in the air, which gives it an opportunity to inspect the 
country for signs of danger. Often, however, if the 
weather is favorable, these birds come well to decoys, 
and are easily killed. 

There are few more graceful species than this. The 
long pointed wings, the slender form, terminating in a 
long neck and tail, and the swift flight, make the bird a 
very beautiful one. 

This species rejoices in many names, and some of 
them given by Mr. Trumbull are pied gray duck, 
gray widgeon, sea widgeon, split-tail, sprig-tail, spike- 
tail, picket-tail, sea pheasant, water pheasant, long 
neck, sharp-tail and spindle-tail. 





WOOD DUCK. 

Aix sponsa (Linn.). 

The adult male has the head and long thick crest rich 
green and purple, with brilliant metallic reflections. A 
narrow line of white starts from the upper angle of the 
bill, passing over the eye, and continuing down into 
the crest. Another wider line starts behind the eye and 
runs down into the under part of the crest. The throat 
and upper neck are white, sending out two branches, 
one up behind the eye, another back behind the head, 
partly enclosing the violet black of the lower back of the 
head. The lower neck and breast are rich chestnut 
glossed with purple, dotted in front with triangular 

139 



I40 DUCK SHOOTING. 

Spots of white. The back is purpHsh-black, with glossy 
reflections, as are also the upper wing-coverts. The 
shoulder feathers and tertiaries are black, with blue, 
green and purple reflections, and the longest of the ter- 
tiary feathers is tipped with white. On the side of the 
breast, just in front of the wnig, is a broad white bar, 
and below it, another bar, which is black. The sides 
and flanks are finely waved with black lines on a brown- 
ish-yellow ground, many of the feathers having a bar 
of black, bordered witli white at the extremities. The 
under parts are pure white, but the under tail-coverts 
are glossy black. The upper tail-coverts are long, fall 
over the tail on either side, and are rich with metallic 
reflections. The bill is deep red, with a black spot near 
the base, a white spot on the side, a yellow border to 
the base, and with a black nail. The eyes are bright 
carmine red, surrounded by orange-red or scarlet eye- 
lids. The legs and feet are yellow, with dus/'y joints 
and webs. 

The adult female is generally gray, or greenish-gray, 
but her markings, in a general way, resemble those of 
the male. She has the crest, but not so much of it as 
the male. The throat and under parts are white; the 
breast and sides greenish-gray, dotted with white mark- 
ings; the upper parts are more brownish, and have 
purple and bronzy reflections. The secondaries are 
white-tipped. The bill is dusky, and there is a narrow 
line of white all about it. The length is about 19 inches, 
Aving 9^ inches. 

The wood duck is easilv the most beautiful of North 



WOOD DUCK. I^ r 

American ducks. It is commonly compared with the 
mandarin duck of China, but it is larger and its dress is 
a little more highly colored, and while more rich, is yet 
more simple. 

This is a bird of the South, and breeds everywhere 
throughout the Eastern and Southern United States, 
in suitable localities. Unlike most of our ducks, it is 
not a migrant to the far North, though it has been 
found as far North as latitude 54 degrees, but it con- 
lines itself pretty well to the United States, and further 
to the southward. 

The wood duck is a bird of swamps and small inland 
waters, and is notable as 1:)eing one of the few species 
which always nests in trees. Sometimes it takes pos- 
session of a hole excavated by a great woodpecker, or 
it may adapt a hollow in a trunk or branch to its use. It 
is very much at home in the timber, and threads its way 
among the tree-tops at great speed. The eggs are 
often laid on the bare wood that forms the floor of the 
cavity which it occupies, but, as incubation goes on, the 
mother plucks more or less down from her breast to 
cover them. When the young are hatched, if the nest 
is over the water, they crawl to the opening and 
throw themselves into the air to fall into the water. If, 
however, the nest is at a distance from the shore, the 
mother carries them to the v/ater in her bill. When the 
young ducks are hatched their claws are exceedingly 
sharp, and they are great climbers. They thus have 
little difficulty in making their way to the mouth of 
the hole. 



142 



DUCK SHOOTING. 



The wood duck is often kept in confinement, and is 
a beautiful pet. There are many records of its having 
been bred in captivity. 

While a great many wood ducks are shot, they are 
nowhere sufficiently numerous to make it worth while 
to gun especially for them. Those that are killed are 
taken chiefly by accident, when they fly near to decoys 
put out for other fowl. Being shot at all seasons of the 
year they are becoming very scarce and are likely to be 
exterminated before long. 




DIVING DUCKS. 

SUB-FAMILY FuliguUuCB. 

Under this head are included what are commonly 
known as the sea ducks, deep water ducks, or diving 
ducks, birds more fitted for a continuous life on the 
water than those heretofore described, and which, as a 
rule, derive their sustenance from water deeper than 
that frequented by the shoal-water ducks. 

As pointed out in another place, these birds have 
larger feet than the shoal-water ducks, while the legs 
are placed further back. These characters make pro- 
gression on land more difficult, but assist markedly in 
swimming and diving. All the birds of this si-.b-family 
may be known by having a web or lobe hanging down 
from the hind toe. This web or lobe is absent in all 
the fresh-water ducks. The sea ducks or diving ducks 
are supposed to spend most of their time on the salt 
water, but this is a rule to which there are a multitude 
of exceptions, and man}' of the species of this sub- 
family resort to inland waters to rear their young. 
Some birds commonly regarded as exclusively marine 
are found at all seasons of the year on great bodies of 
fresh water, as the Great Lakes and Yellowstone Lake 
in Wyoming. 

As stated, most of the members of this sub-family 
procure their food by diving, and bring up from the 
depths of water fish, mollusks and grasses of one kind 

143 



T44 DUCK SHOOTING. 

and another. Many of them are. therefore, not dehcate 
food, although, on the other hand, the far-famed can- 
vas-back, which belongs to this group, is one of the 
choicest of our ducks. 

There are various strongly marked anatomical and 
other differences within the group, which do not re- 
quire consideration here. They are described at length 
in various ornithological works. 

Mr. Elliot has pointed out that, as a rule, the notes of 
these birds are harsh and guttural. 

While the fresh-water ducks usually spend their time 
in the marshes and in fresh-water ponds during the 
day, the sea ducks, as a rule, resort to wide stretches of 
open water, where in moderate weather they rest dur- 
ing the middle of the day, resorting to their feeding 
grounds at evening, and sometimes feeding during the 
night and well into the morning. 








RUFOUS-CRESTED DUCK. 



Nctta nifiiia (Pall.). 



The adult male has the sides of head and throat pur- 
plish-brown, darker on the throat, and changing to 
pale reddish at the front and base of the crest, becoming 
paler toward the tips of the feathers. The lower half 
of the neck, with a narrow strip running up the back of 
the neck to the head, the breast, belly, lower tail-coverts, 
upper tail-coverts and rump, black ; darkest on the neck 
and breast, and with greenish reflections on upper tail- 
coverts. Back, grayish-brown, growing darker toward 
the rump. The scapulars, or shoulder feathers, brown- 
ish-yellow. Speculum, white tipped with gray. The 
bend of the wing, white, as are also the primaries, ex- 
cept the tips of some of the outer ones, which are gray- 

145 



146 DUCK SHOOTING. 

ish-brown. The sides and flanks, white, indistinctly 
marked with brownish bars. The tail is grayish- 
brow^n ; the bill and feet red. There is a full, soft crest 
on the crown oi the head. Length, 22 inches; wing, 
10 inches. 

The female has much less crest than the male, and it 
is brown. The rest of the head and neck, and the lower 
parts, generally, are pale ashy, darker on the breast and 
sides. The upper parts are grayish-brown. Those por- 
tions that are white in the male are faintly marked in 
the female, or do not show at all. The speculum is 
white, as in the male, but much duller. 

This is an Old World species, very doubtfully at- 
tributed to North America. It may be questioned 
whether it has ever been seen here in life by an orni- 
thologist, but specimens have been found in the New 
York markets for sale, with other ducks which were 
known to have been killed near that city. No sports- 
man is likely to meet with it, but it is introduced here to 
complete the list of North American ducks. 





CANVAS-BACK DUCK. 
Aythya vaUisncria (Wils.). 

The adult male has the top of the head and the feath- 
ers immediately about the base of the bill and chin, 
black; the rest of head and neck are reddish-brown, 
what would be called in a horse, mahogany bay. The 
lower neck, fore-back and breast, black. The back, 
lower breast and belly, white, very finely waved with 
black bars ; whence the name, canvas-back. Primaries, 
black. The tail, black, w'ith a grayish cast; bill, black; 
iris, red ; feet, lead color. 

The female has those parts which in the male are 
red, brown and black, wood-brown, with touches of 
whitish behind the eye, and on the fore-neck. The 
plumage, generally, is grayish-brown, the tips of the 

147 



148 DUCK. SHOOTING. 

feathers often being whitish, and venniculated with 
dusky. The length is 20 to 22 inches. 

Of the American ducks, the canvas-back is easily 
the most famous. Its tiesh depends for its flavor en- 
tirely on the food that the bird eats, and since for 
many years it was chiefly killed where the so-called 
wild celery abounds, the reputation of the canvas-back 
was made by the individuals that fed on this grass. 

As a matter of fact, it may be doubted whether in 
waters where this plant is abundant the canvas-back is 
any better than some of its fellows of the duck tribe, 
such as the redhead or the widgeon, which subsist 
largely on the same food. But the fame of the canvas- 
back is now too firmly established ever to be shaken, and 
it will continue to be regarded, as it has so long been, as 
the king of our ducks. 

The canvas-back is an American species, and has not 
even any close relatives in the Old World. In winter it 
ranges south as far as Central America, but confines it- 
self to no portion of the country, being equally abund- 
ant on both coasts, and in the interior as well. I have 
killed it on the Atlantic coast, as well as in Souihern 
California; and during the migrations it is abundant in 
Montana, and generally throughout the interior. 

Years ago the canvas-back bred in the Northern 
United States, toward the west, probably in Minnesota, 
certainly in Dakota and Montana, but, as with so many 
other species, the, settling up of the northern country 
has destroyed its breeding grounds, and it now, for the 
most part, passes far to the northward to breed. Dr. 



CANVAS-BACK DUCK. 149 

Dall found it breeding at Fort Yukon, in Alaska. Mr. 
Ross met with it on Great Slave Lake ; and other north- 
ern observers have detected it throughout the fur coun- 
tries. Besides this, Captain Bendire found it breeding 
in Oregon, and Dr. Newberry believed that he had ob- 
tained evidence of its nesting in the Cascade range. 
The nest of the canvas-back is large and well built, and 
is lined with down and feathers, plucked from the 
breast of the mother bird. The eggs are grayish-green 
in color and number from seven to nine. 

On their return from the North the canvas-backs 
reach the United States late in October or early in No- 
vember. They are hardy birds, and it seems that it 
takes cold weather to drive them southward. On the 
New England coast they are very rare, though a few 
used to be killed there. On Long Island they scarcely 
ever occur of late years, nor are they found in great 
numbers on the Virginia coast. In North Carolina, how- 
ever, and along the open broad waters which fringe 
that State and South Carolina, canvas-backs are very 
abundant. They used to be so, also, in the Chesapeake 
Bay, but continual gunning and the destruction of 
their feeding grounds by frequent floods, which kill 
the plants on which they subsist, have made them there 
much less abundant than they used to be. The shoot- 
ing grounds in Chesapeake Bay and Susquehanna Flats, 
which a few years ago afforded such good gunning that 
they were bought or rented at fabulous prices, are no 
longer so much frequented by the birds, and have be- 
come much less valuable. 



150 DUCK SHOOTING. 

Like many others of our game birds, the canvas-back 
during the last few years has learned a good deal. Al- 
ways a shy and wary bird and difficult of approach, it 
has learned to avoid the shores, and perhaps is grad- 
ually learning to avoid the bush-ljlind. As its diving 
powers are great and it is not obliged to fly over the 
land to get to its feeding grounds, it spends its time in 
great rafts, on the shallow open waters of such sounds 
as Currituck, Pamlico, Core and Albemarle, feeding 
safe from danger, and during the morning and evening 
hours taking its exercise by flying great distances up 
and down the sounds, high in air, far above the reach of 
any gun. It is only in dull and rainy weather, when 
the wind blows hard, that the canvas-backs come in 
from the open water to seek the shelter of a lee of the 
marsh, but when such weather comes and the gunner is 
properly located, the canvas-backs will come to his de- 
coys as readily as any other ducks. In the same way, 
when — as happens usually at least once each year — a 
cold snap closes the waters of the sound, leaving only a 
few air lioles, where warm springs or swiftly moving 
ciuTents keep the waters open, the canvas-back and 
other fowl resorting to these open spots may be killed 
in great numbers. On such an occasion, in January. 
1900, I saw canvas-backs in numbers greater than I 
ever beheld before. An account of this flight, pub- 
lished in Forest and Stream, is as follows : 

"I have recently had an opportunity of being brought 
into what I may call close association with the greatest 
of all the wildfowl, the superb canvas-back duck, and 



CANVAS-BACK DUCK. 15 1 

within the last ten days have seen more of these birds 
and at closer quarters than during any season for many 
years. The locahty was Currituck Sound, and the 
sights that I saw were witnessed by several others, old 
gunners, who agree with me that so great a flight of 
canvas-backs has not been witnessed for many years. 

"The first few days of shooting had about it nothing 
very startling except that one-half the bag of ducks 
consisted of canvas-backs. The first day was cold, gray 
and lowering, with a keen breeze from the northwest, 
and occasional spatters of rain, changing later to snow, 
which in the afternoon fell heavily. It was an ideal 
gunning day, and the birds came to the decoys in beau- 
tiful style, so that the first seven or eight canvas-backs 
were killed without a single miss, and for a brief and 
happy hour I was deluded into the belief that at last 
I had learned how to shoot ducks. The rude awaken- 
ing from this cheerful dream came soon afterward, and 
was thorough. I do not imagine that I shall ever again 
be deceived in this way. 

"The second day's shooting was not markedly differ- 
ent from that of the day before, except so far as the 
weather was less favorable, and so the number of can- 
vas-backs secured was very much less. Saturday was a 
lay day, on which there is no shooting, and when we 
arose we found that the continued cold weather had at 
last had its effect and the sound was frozen over. There 
were many large air holes, however, crowded with 
birds, but the cold continued. The next morning many 
of these air holes had frozen, others had grown smaller 



152 DUCK SHOOTING. 

and the natural result was that the ducks, geese, swans 
and blue-peters which occupied the open water seemed 
crowded together as thickly as possible. Much of the 
day was spent on top of the clul) house, studying the 
waters with the glass, watching the movements of the 
birds, marveling at their inconceivable numbers. All 
around the horizon, except on the landward side — that 
is to say, for 270 degrees of the circle — birds were seen 
in countless numbers. Turning the glasses slowly 
along the horizon from northwest to north, east, south 
and southwest, there was no moment at which clouds of 
flying fowl could not be seen in the field of sight, and 
yet, notwithstanding the numbers of birds seen on the 
wing, the air holes seemed to be packed with fowl, and 
great bunches of geese and swans stood and walked 
about on the ice. 

"Away to the north were three large air holes, two of 
which were white with canvas-backs, while in the third 
one, geese were the prominent fowl, although many 
canvas-backs were constantly leaving and coming to it. 
Off to the southeast, at the south mouth of the Little 
Narrows, was quite an extent of open water occupied 
by a horde of geese, two large bunches of blue-peter?. 
and some thousands of common ducks. In the Little 
Narrows, a deep but narrow channel flowing close by 
the house, were great numbers of ducks feeding, and in- 
deed on that Sunday one might have sat on the boat- 
house dock and killed from thirty to fifty birds as they 
traded up and down the Narrows. 

"In the afternoon three or four of us walked down to 



CANVAS-BACK DUCK. 153 

Sheep Island Point, not ten minutes' distance from the 
house, where there was an air hole. In this at the 
moment of our arrival swam fifty or sixty ducks — 
hooded mergansers, ruddies, mallards, whistlers, butter- 
balls and perhaps a dozen canvas-backs. Three or four 
hundred yards to the north was another small air hole, 
perhaps four or five acres in extent, which was crowded 
with canvas-backs. We sat down in the fringe of sedge 
about 60 or 70 yards from the nearest air hole, which 
had a length of perhaps 150 feet and a breadth of 100. 
The live birds in this air hole would make good decoys, 
and we hoped that if the fowl began to fly some of them 
would alight near us. Two of the four men were pro- 
vided with good field glasses. 

"We had not been waiting many minutes, when what 
we had hoped for took place. A bunch of 200 birds rose 
from the further air hole, and after swinging about a 
few times, droi)ped down in the one close to us. These 
were immediately followed by other bunches, and these 
by others ; so that often two or three flocks would be 
swinging about in the air at one time, and all of them 
with our air hole as their objective point. They de- 
scended into it by companies of fifties, hundreds and 
two hundreds, and before long the open water was so 
crowded with the fowl that it seemed as if it could hold 
no more, and as if the birds that came next must neces- 
sarily alight on the backs of their comrades. 

"Soon after the birds alighted they began to dive for 
food, and, probably one-half of them being under water 
at any one moment, room was made for other incom- 



154 DUCK SHOOTING. 

ing birds to occupy. The splashing of the diving ducks 
made the water bubble and boil, and the play of the 
birds as they sometimes chased each other made the 
scene one of the greatest possible animation. Presently 
something occurred to attract their attention, and all 
stretched their necks up into the air and looked. I 
think I have never seen anything in the way of feath- 
ered animal life more impressive than this forest of 
thick necks, crowned by long, shapely heads of rich 
brow^n. After their curiosity was satisfied they began 
again to feed and to play. It is impossible to convey to 
one who has not witnessed such a sight its interest and 
fascination. Here within gunshot — and when seen 
through the glasses appearing within arm's length — 
were twelve or fifteen hundred of the most desirable 
duck that flies, entirely at home and living for the 
benefit of the observers their ordinary winter lives. 

"Looking with the glasses over the smooth ice aw^ay 
to the northward, we could see flying over the ice, or 
resting on it, fowl as far as the eye could reach. From 
the level of the ice where w^e sat, the ducks, resting on 
the water, appeared only as indistinct lines. The geese 
were, of course, larger and darker, and made distinct 
black lines ; while some very distant swans, resting on 
the ice, were miagnified by the illusive effects of the mi- 
rage, so that they looked like detached white houses. 
While we sat w-atching the canvas-backs, two or three 
small flocks of geese swung around over the air hole, 
but finding no spiDt where they might moisten the soles 
of their feet, they alighted on the ice just beyond it. 



CANVAS-BACK DUCK. 1 55 

"We sat and watched the fowl until the increasing 
chill of the air and the sinking sun warned us to return 
to the house. As we arose without any precautions the 
canvas-backs at once became alert, and as we pushed 
our way among the reeds away from the shore the 
whole mass rose with a mighty roar of wings and a 
splashing of water that made one think more of the 
noise of Broadway when traffic is heaviest than any- 
thing else that I can recall. 

"That night it was again cold, and in the morning the 
Little Narrows was closed by ice, except for a few air 
holes, and the open water in the sound was still less. 
The ice was not yet sufficiently strong to bear a man, 
and yet it was too heavy to be broken through by a boat. 
Numbers of the shore gunners endeavored to get out to 
the air holes to shoot there, but none, I think, suc- 
ceeded. Those of us at the house shot at various nearby 
points, with moderate success, one man making the 
great score of sixty-six canvas-backs, besides some 
other ducks. 

"That night after dinner one of the party stepped out 
on the porch of the house to look at the weather. The 
night was clear and cold, brilliant stars twinkled in the 
sky : through the branches of the trees over the boat- 
house corner, and reflected in the placid waters of an 
air hole in the Narrows, shone the crescent of the young 
moon, embracing between its horns the dull globe which 
was yet to grow. The scene was odd and beautiful, like 
a stage effect of some mediaeval scene. As he stood 
there, delighting in the beauty of the night, yet nipped 



156 DUCK SHOOTING. 

a little by the keen frost, a curious sound — like that 
made by a river running over the pebbles of a shallow — 
came to his ear. It recalled to the veteran salmon 
angler the murmur of the Restigouche as through forest 
and open and deep pool and murmuring shoal it hurries 
on its way to the Bay of Chaleurs. He wondered what 
could cause this sound in this place, and above all on 
such a night, and, walking down to the boat house, 
passed through it and stood on the dock. Here the ex- 
planation of the sound was plain. The air holes which 
during the day had enlarged were crowded with feeding 
canvas-backs, and the murmur of the water was neither 
more nor less than the splashing made by the fowl as 
they dived for food. 

"The freeze lasted for some days longer. The birdi 
were abundant; but the weather, clear, windless and 
toward the last warm, was much against the gunning, 
since the fowl did not fly. Nevertheless one or two men 
at different times had good shooting — some of them 
better than they had ever enjoyed before or expect ever 
to have again. This shooting was largely at canvas- 
backs, since very few common ducks were shot. The 
freeze having closed their feeding grounds, they sat 
about on the ice, unwary and inert, waiting till the 
waters should open again, and in the meantime starv- 
ing. Under such circumstances no one cared to kill 
them. On the other hand, the canvas-backs taken were 
unusually heavy and fine birds. 

"Across the sound, on the waters of a neighboring 
club, very great shooting was enjoyed, though they se- 



CAN I' AS-BACK DUCK. 1 57 

cured practically no canvas-backs. On the other hand, 
they made enormous bags of geese and swans, some- 
thing which no one can regret, since the geese and the 
swans at Currituck Sound are so numerous that :hey 
eat up vast quantities of the food which might better be 
C(jnsumed by the ducks. There are men long familiar 
with these waters who declare that the geese and the 
swans are constantly becoming more and more abund- 
ant and that ultimately they will occupy these waters 
to the exclusion of more desirable fowl. This, however, 
is not likely to occur in our time, and the prophecy may 
be classed with another, made twenty years ago by one 
of the most eminent ornithologists of this country, who 
declared that fifteen years from that time the blue-peter 
would be the game bird of Currituck Sound. The years 
have come and the years have gone, but there are still 
a few canvas-backs left, and it is possible that when our 
children tie out in Currituck Sound in just the right 
weather they, too, may kill a few of these glorious 
birds." 

The food of the canvas-back, from which it takes its 
specific name, and to which it owes its delicious flavor, 
is the so-called wild celery, which is really a water grass. 
It grows both in fresh and brackish water, and is 
common at various points along the sea-coast, and also 
in the fresh waters of the interior. 

This plant, like many others, has a variety of com- 
mon names. Some of the most familiar in different 
localities are "tape grass," from the tape-like appear- 
ance of the long leaves; "channel weed," as it fre- 



158 DUCK SHOOTING. 

quently grows in channels where the water flows, not 
swiftly : "eel grass" — this name arises, it is said, by Dr. 
Darlington, from the habit which eels have of hiding 
under the leaves, which are usually procumbently float- 
ing under the water's surface. The appellation "wild 
celery," a local term applied originally perhaps only by 
gunners and watermen at Havre de Grace and vicinity, 
is, like many vulgar synonyms, a misnomer, as this 
plant is in no particular related to celery, which by 
botanists is known as Apiiiiu. Wild celery, or, as it is 
more generally known along the coast, eel grass, is not 
confined to the Chesapeake Bay or to the sea-coast. It 
is found in the Brandywine Creek, growing in slow- 
running water, and in many other interior waters. The 
scientific name of the plant is Vallisncria spiralis 
(Linn. ), the generic name being given in honor of An- 
tonio Vallisneri, an Italian botanist. It is a dioecious 
herbaceous plant remarkable on account of its mode of 
fertilization. It grows entirely under water, has long 
radical grass-like leaves from one to three feet long 
and from one-quarter to three-quarters of an inch wide. 
The female flower floats at the surface at the end of 
long thread-like spiral scapes, which curiously contract 
and lengthen with the rise and fall of the water. The 
male flower has very short stems or scapes, from which 
the flowers break off and rise to the surface to fertilize 
the pollen of the attached floating female flowers. 

The canvas-back is one of the swiftest of all our 
ducks. It is commonly said that they fly at the rate of 
ninetv miles an hour, but, of course, this is a mere 



CANVAS-BACK DUCK. 1 59 

guess, since no accurate observations have ever been 
made on their flight. It is certain that they proceed at 
great speed, and the novice at canvas-back shooting is 
very sure to shoot behind them until he has had a great 
deal of practice. 

The canvas-backs start from their southern home to- 
ward the north early in March and follow the coast and 
the interior northward, often reaching northern waters 
before they are generally open. On the breeding 
grounds they are practically undisturbed. 






.*ft^::i.vs.jr::^< 



jidtk^^. 





REDHEAD DUCK. 

Aythya americana (Eyt. ). 

In general aspect like the canvas-back, for which it 
is often mistaken. The adult male has the feathers of 
the head full and puffy. The head and neck are bright 
reddish-chestnut, often glossy with coppery reflections ; 
the upper part of back, lower neck, breast and rump, 
and upper and under tail-coverts, black. The back, 
shoulder feathers of the wing, sides and flanks, whitish, 
cross-marked with black lines, slightly wider than in 
the canvas-back, thus givmg the whole plumage a 
darker tone. The speculum is pale bluish-gray, bor- 
dered with black above and tipped with white. The 
primaries are dusky, some of the inner quills being dark 

160 



REDHEAD DUCK. l6l 

slaty-gray. The tail is dusky. The bill is pale blue, 
black at the tip, the eyes yellow, and the feet are bluish- 
gra}'. The abdomen is white. 

The female is a plain brownish duck, almost white on 
the forehead, chin and sides of the head. The lower 
neck, sides and flanks are brown, as are the lower parts 
generally, but the lower tail-coverts are white. The 
speculum is as in the male. 

Like the canvas-back, the redhead is a bird of gen- 
eral distribution through North America. It is very 
common in migration on the Atlantic coast, as well as 
in the interior and on the Pacific coast. Mr. Ridgway 
found it common and evidently breeding at Sacra- 
mento, Cal., in June, 1867, as well as in Nevada, where 
he saw beautiful decoys made of its skin by the Piute 
Indians. It is said not to reach Alaska in summer, but 
is found breeding throughout the Hudson's Bay coun- 
try, east of the Rocky Mountains. Formerly it bred in 
great numbers in the United States, in Michigan, Wis- 
consin, Minnesota, Dakota, Montana and Wyoming, 
but the continual persecution to which the redhead, 
with our other ducks, is subjected in spring has driven 
it from many of these ancient breeding grounds. There 
are some localities, however, in the Middle West occu- 
pied by gunning clubs where spring shooting is not al- 
lowed, and here the redhead and some other varieties 
of ducks stop and breed, with the result that in the 
autumn the club members have shooting far better than 
they ever did when spring shooting prevailed. Birds 
that have been bred on the grounds are gentle and 



1 62 DUCK SHOOTING. 

wonted, and act as decoys to their relatives migrating 
from the North, calhng them down and giving them 
confidence that here, at least, is a place where they 
may be free from persecution. 

In winter the redhead is found as far south as Mex- 
ico and Southern Texas, but is more common further to 
die northward, and, indeed, goes but little south of the 
region where open water is found. It is abundant dur- 
ing the migrations on Long Island, but is not common 
on the New England coast. Each autumn and winter, 
however, redheads are shot in great numbers on Great 
South Bay, but rarely or not at all on Long Island 
Sound. On the eastern shore of Virginia, in Chesa- 
peake Bay, and on the sounds along the coasts of North 
and South Carolina the redhead is very abundant, and 
it spends the winter in great numbers in these waters, 
leaving them only when, as usually happens once or 
twice each winter, it is driven further south by the oc- 
currence of cold weather, which freezes the sounds. In 
such places, in all sorts of weather, they may be seen, 
high in air, trading, as it is termed ; that is to say, flying 
long distances far above the water, as if examining the 
ground before they determined to alight. The great 
flocks of birds that do this trading are usually canvas- 
backs and redheads. 

The redhead is said by northern explorers to breed 
throughout the fur countries, and they have also been 
found breeding near Calais, Me. The nests are usu- 
ally built close together, in colonies, generally near the 
water, and are somewhat more substantial than ducks' 



REDHEAD DUCK. ■ 1 63 

nests often are. The eggs are almost white, and are 
usually ten or twelve in number. 

In many of its habits the redhead resembles the 
broad-bill or black-head. It comes up to decoys quite 
as gently as that bird, when it has once made up its 
mind to do so, and when about to alight the birds 
crowd close together, and thus offer the gunner an op- 
portunity to kill several at a time. When only wounded 
the redhead dives and skulks well, and is not always 
to be recovered. After diving and swimming a long 
way under water it comes to the surface, and perhaps 
shows only a portion of the bill, swimming off so low 
against the wind that it is not likely to be detected. 

The flesh of the redhead is excellent, and when it 
has been feeding on the same food, it cannot be dis- 
tinguished from that of the canvas-back. 

The redhead is a near relative of the European 
pochard, which it closely resembles, though easily dis- 
tinguished on comparison. 

This species is sometimes called the red-headed 
broad-bill, red-headed raft duck, and, oddly enough, 
Washington canvas-back. 




BROAD-BILL. 



Ay thy a mania ncarctica Stejn. 



The adult male has the head, neck and fore part of 
breast and of back, black ; the feathers of the head and 
neck with a greenish gloss; rump, primaries and tail, 
brownish-black; the speculum, or wing mark, white; 
middle of back and sides, white, cross-lined with black 
and white. The under surface of the body is white, 
marked on the lower belly with narrow blackish cross- 
lines and black beneath the tail. The bill is broad, pale 
bluish-lead color, with a black nail ; the eyes yellow ; 
the legs and feet gray; the length, 1 8 to 20 inches. 

The female has the front of head, immediately 

around the base-of the bill, white. Those parts which 

1&4 



BROAD-BILL. 1 65 

in the male are black are in the female brown. The 
back is much darker, faintly marked with zig-zag white 
lines. The bill is darker. 

Many widely different opinions are expressed as to 
the value of the broad-bill as food, and those who de- 
bate this question are both right and both wrong. In 
other words, the flesh of the broad-bill, as of most 
other ducks, is sometimes good and sometimes bad, de- 
pending on the food which it eats. Along the New 
England coast, where, to a great extent it feeds on shell- 
fish and other animal matter, the broad-bill is not a deli- 
cate bird, but further south, where its food is largely 
vegetable, and where its name is changed to black-head 
and blue-bill, it is a most excellent fowl. In the in- 
terior, too, it lives chiefly on vegetable matter. There 
it is known as the scaup duck, blue-bill, raft duck, big 
fowl duck, and is eagerly sought after. However, 
the tendency of this bird appears to be toward the sea- 
coast. It is abundant in California, where many are 
killed, but it does not seem to go as far south as its 
relative, the little black-head, and winters on the New 
England and New York coasts and in New Jersey, be- 
ing, in my experience, rather rare as far south as Vir- 
ginia and North Carolina, where the little black-head 
is very abundant. 

The broad-bill is a species of wide range, being 
found throughout North America, as far south as Cen- 
tral America, and also in northern portions of Europe 
and Asia. It formerly bred in some numbers on the 
northern prairies, and I have found its nests in North 



1 66 DUCK SHOOTING. 

Dakota and Montana, though some of these may have 
been those of the next species. Dr. Dall found it loreed- 
ing in Alaska, and it is supposed to breed generally 
through northern North America, in the British pos- 
sessions. 

The nest of the broad-bill is usually placed close to 
the water; it is little more than a depression in the 
ground, among the grass, lined perhaps with a few 
spears of bright grass, and with down from the bird's 
breast. The number of eggs is six or eight ; they are 
grayish-white in color, and when the mother leaves 
them are usually covered by the down. 

The broad-bill is abundant in Long Island Sound 
and on the Great South Bay, where it is shot in great 
numbers from batteries. It reaches our coasts late in 
October, and is usually found associated together in 
considerable bodies, which, however, are likely to break 
up into small flocks in rough and stormy weather. 





LITTLE BLACK-HEAD. 



Aythya afUnis (Eyt.). 

Exactly similar in color to the broad-bill, but smaller. 
The gloss on the neck is likely to be bluish or purplish, 
instead of greenish. The length of this species is 
about 1 6 inches, as against 1 8 or 20 in the preceding. 

These two species were long regarded as the same, 
and, indeed, as yet there seems to be no definite char- 
acter to separate them, except that of size. On the 
New England coast, during the migrations, the two 
are often found associated together, and this is true to 
a less extent further to the southward. At the same 
time the difference between them is well recognized by 
ornithologists and by gunners generally, and is ex- 
pressed in the common names applied to this species, 

167 



l68 DUCK SHOOTING. 

which Mr. Trumbull and others give. Some of these 
are little broad-bill, little black-head, little blue-bill, 
river broad-bill, creek black-head, river blue-bill, marsh 
blue-bill, mud blue-bill, mud broad-bill and fresh-water 
broad-bill. 

Notwithstanding the fact that most of the little black- 
heads are readily to be identified by their size, there is 
considerable variation in the species and sometimes 
these birds almost equal the broad-bill in their meas- 
urements. It is stated that the adult males can be easily 
identified, no matter what their measurements may 
show, by the metallic gloss of the head feathers, these 
being always green in the broad-bill and blue or purple 
in the little broad-bill. This metallic gloss, therefore, 
would seem to be considered by some naturalists a 
specific character. 

This is one of the most abundant birds of the south- 
ern seacoast, being found, in winter, from New Eng- 
land south to Florida, and even beyond that, to the 
W^est Indies and Central America. It is found, indeed, 
over the whole of North America, and, while breeding 
chiefly north of the United States, it is yet found in 
Minnesota, Dakota and ]\Iontana. 

Owing to its similarity to the greater broad-bill, it is 
not always easy to determine just what the range of 
this species is. Some Alaska explorers give it as breed- 
ing in that country, while others declare that of the 
many broad-bills seen by them none belongs to this spe- 
cies. However, east of the Rocky Mountains the nests 
have been found throughout British America, usually 



LITTLE BLACK-HEAD. 



169 



placed in swamps or near lakes, very simple in construc- 
tion and lined with down. 

The little black-head is one of the swiftest fliers and 
most expert divers of all our ducks, and the task of re- 
trieving one that has been wounded, unless one is pro- 
vided wath a good dog, is not always an easy one. This 
species is quite as much an adept at skulking and hid- 
ing as its larger relative, and, on the whole, is very well 
able to take care of itself. The flesh is usually very 
delicate, yet the very reverse of this may be true in lo- 
calities where it has had an opportunity to feed largely 
on shell-fish. 

Black-heads seem to be equally at home in shoal 
v/ater and in deep ; they can dive as well as the canvas- 
back, and yet they are quite willing to puddle about 
through the edge of the marsh and to pick up a liveli- 
hood in company with the fresh-water ducks. 



.# 





RING-NECKED DUCK. 



Aythya coUaris (Donov.). 



The adult male has back of head and crown loose and 
puffy, at times showing- ahnost as a crest. Tlie head, 
neck, breast, upper parts and under tail-coverts, black ; 
the head sometimes glossed with purple and the back 
with greenish. There is a more or less distinct chest- 
nut or reddish-brown collar around the middle of the 
neck, and a white spot upon the chin. The speculum is 
bluish-gray ; sides of body waved with white and black- 
ish lines. The under parts are white. The bill is dark 
grayish blue, with a black tip, and a very pale (in life 
nearly white) band across it, near the tip; the eyes are 
yellow. 

The female does not show the neck ring and the bill 

170 



RING-NECKED DUCK. I/I 

is less plainly marked. The black of the male changes to 
brown in the female. The fore part of head, all about 
the base of the bill, is nearly white. The lower parts 
of the body are white, sometimes marked with brown or 
brownish-gray, growing darker toward the tail. The 
length is i6 to i8 inches. 

The female of the ring-necked duck is very similar to 
that of the redhead, but the former is darker, except 
about the bill, where the pale markings are much paler, 
often almost wliite. The difference in the bills is char- 
acteristic, that of the female ring-neck being much the 
shorter and broader. 

The ring-necked duck is by no means so abundant as 
many of our other species and is quite commonly con- 
fused with the little black-head, which it closely re- 
sembles in habits. In fact, as a rule, gunners do not 
distinguish between the tufted duck and the little black- 
head, and when counting up their score at the end of the 
day always refer to this species as a black-head. Its 
common names indicate this confusion. It is called ring- 
necked scaup, ring-necked black-head, marsh blue-bill, 
bastard broad-bill, ring-billed black-head, ring-billed 
shuffler, and sometimes it is called creek redhead be- 
cause of its resemblance to that species. I have also 
heard boatmen, who had happened to notice the red col- 
lar about the bird's neck, call it a hybrid between a 
black-head and a redhead. 

The ring-necked duck is found sparingly throughout 
almost the whole of North America. Its chief breeding 
grounds are north of the United States, but it probably 



172 DUCK SHOOTING. 

used to breed also in suitable localities on the plains, and 
its nests have been taken near Calais, in Maine, as well 
as in Wisconsin and Minnesota. Its nest is built usu- 
ally in thick cover, close to the water, and is a neater 
structure than most ducks' nests. The eggs are usu- 
ally of a grayish ivory white and number from eight to 
ten. This species is occasionally taken on the Califor- 
nia coast and also on that of New England, but it is no- 
where common. Even in the South, in that paradise of 
ducks, Currituck, Core and Albemarle sounds, these 
birds are few in number. 

They decoy well and are easily killed when they come 
up to the stools, although very swift fliers. 

It is said that this bird is more abundant on our in- 
land waters than on the sea-coast. Even there, how- 
ever, it can never be called an abundant species. Its 
flesh, under favorable circumstances, is excellent eating, 
and if it were more abundant it would be one of the 
most desirable of our fowl. 






^^^MMMZ !zi. 'ii0 



GOLDEN-EYE, WHISTLER. 



Glaucionetta clangnla americana (Bonap.). 

The adult male has the head somewhat puffy, but the 
feathers longer on the back of the head, forming more 
or less of a crest. The head and upper part of the neck 
are dark glossy green, with purple reflections and a 
roundish and sometimes oval white spot just back of the 
bill and below the eye. The lower neck, fore-back, 
scapulars and wing-coverts, with the secondaries and 
most of the under parts, pure white; the back, long 
scapulars, and the base of the secondaries, black. The 
long feathers of the wings and their coverts are black- 
ish. The tail is ashy-gray ; the bill black ; eye yellow ; 
legs and feet yellowish-red. The total length is about 
20 inches. 

173 



174 DUCK SHOOTING. 

Tlie female has the head and upper part of the neck 
brown. There is a white ring about the lower neck, 
and the upper breast is gray. The back is blackish- 
brown. The white on the wing is chiefly confined to 
the secondaries. The under parts are white ; the tail is 
dark brown; bill sometimes yellowish, but more often 
brownish ; legs and feet as in the male. 

The American golden-eye has been separated by nat- 
uralists from the bird of Europe and called a variety, on 
no better ground than that it is slightly larger than the 
Old World form. Naturalists are not agreed on this 
point, and sportsmen are not greatly interested in such 
fine distinctions. 

The golden-eye is a bird of wide distribution, breed- 
ing throughout the northern parts of the Northern 
Hemisphere and in w'inter pursuing its migrations as 
far south as the Southern United States and even be- 
yond to Cuba. It is a bird familiar to all sportsmen, 
but from the standpoint of the epicure it is not highly 
regarded. It has been found breeding as far north as 
Alaska and undoubtedly is scattered in summer, in mod- 
erate numbers, all over the British possessions. It 
breeds in Maine and also in Massachusetts, but probably 
not south of that. I have found the golden-eye com- 
mon, in summer, in the high Rocky Mountains, not far 
south of the parallel of 49 degrees, but am unable to say 
whether it v>-as this or the next species. 

The golden-eye is one of the few tree-breeding ducks, 
choosing for this purpose some hollow limb or broken- 
off stump in which to lay its eggs ; these are pale gray- 



GOLDEN -EYE. 175 

ish-green in color and are said to be from six to eight. 
Concerning the breeding habits of this species, the 
veteran naturahst, Mr. Geo. A. Boardman, said in 
Forest and Stream: 

"Fifty years ago we used to have six different tree 
ducks breeding on our river : Barrow's golden-eye and 
the buffle-head {albeola) rare, but the common golden- 
eye, the American merganser, hooded merganser and 
wood duck abundant. About fifty years ago pickerel 
were put into our waters, which soon put an end to most 
of our wild ducks breeding, as the pickerel ate up all the 
chick ducks except in the few lakes or ponds that were 
free from pickerel. Near to Calais are several ponds 
and lakes that are free from those fish, and the tree 
ducks bring their young to those lakes for safety. 

"I was at the Kendrick Lake, and a lad that lived near 
by was with me. A duck (whistler) came flying low 
toward us, when the lad threw up his hat with a shout, 
when the old duck dropped a young one that fell near 
us that was at least ten days old. The old one went for 
it so quickly I almost lost it, but I got it and put it in my 
pocket for a specimen. We were near the lake, and the 
old duck also, when we saw she had four others in the 
water. The boy said if we keep quiet she will go away 
and bring others, or if she is afraid of us very much she 
will take those across the lake or to the other lake. 
They were getting near to some water grass, when the 
old duck made a flutter, caught one and went across the 
lake ; it was hardly two minutes before she returned and 
took anothiir. 



176 DUCK SHOOTING. 

"I don't think she took them by her moutli, and the 
one she dropped, if it had been in her mouth we shoukl 
have seen it. Mr. Eastman, father of the lad, said they 
often took their young from one lake or river to another 
if they thought them in danger, and said he had seen 
them bring the young from the nest to the water and 
then in their bills, but, to go any distance, or if they are 
any size, carry them pressed to the body by the feet, and 
the boys often by a shout made them drop their young. 
They brought me several different kinds afterward, 
wood duck, whistlers and hooded mergansers, but no 
young of the large merganser." 

In a recent number of the Auk (Vol. XVII (N. S.), 
p. 207, July, 1900) Mr. William Brewster has given a 
most interesting account of the nesting habits of this 
species. The article is illustrated by admirable photo- 
graphs. 

The whistler, as it is frequently called, although re- 
sorting to the fresh waters during the breeding season, 
is much at home on the salt water in autumn and winter. 
It is an expert diver and feeds largely on shell-fish, and 
when it can obtain them, on small minnows. On the 
other hand, it readily eats grain and frequents the wild 
rice fields of the interior and the fresh marshes of the 
coast, and when it has lived on grain for some time its 
flesh is very good eating. The name whistler, so com- 
monly applied to it along the sea-coast, is given because 
of the quivering, whistling noise made by the wings 
while the bird is flying, which is often recognizable long 
before the bird itself can be seen. Other names for this 



GOLDEN-EYE. 1 77 

species are golden-eye, from its yellow iris; conjuring 
and spirit duck, from the rapidity with which it dives ; 
brass-eye and brass-eyed whistler, whistle-wing, merry- 
wing, great-head, bull-head, iron-head, cob-head and 
cub-head. 

While the whistler is one of our most beautiful ducks,, 
it is not highly regarded by those who have an oppor- 
tunity to kill better fowl, and, like the little dipper and 
ruddy duck and the mergansers, it is often allowed to 
pass over the decoys without being shot at. It is not a 
bird that decoys readily, and, as a rule, offers little 
sport ; but at many points in New England and Canada, 
where better ducks are rare, its pursuit offers some 
reward to the gunners. 





BARROW'S GOLDEN-EYE. 



Glaucionctta islandica (Gmel.). 



Adult male extremely similar to the golden-eye, but 
larger and with the head and upper neck bluish-black, 
with purplish reflections instead of greenish, with the 
spot at the base of the bill, and in front of the eye. tri- 
angular or crescent-shaped, and with very much less 
white on the wing, this usually being confined to two 
long bars with a short, black bar between them. 

The female is much as in the ordinary whistler. The 
collar about her neck is narrower than in the whistler ; 
the white on the wing is less and is crossed by a black 
bar. The grayish on the breast, sides and flank is 
wider in this species than in the whistler. 

178 



B ARROWS GOLDEN-EYE. 1/9 

Barrow's golden-eye is much less common than the 
ordinary whistler. Like that species it is a northern 
bird, but it appears to be much less abundant in Europe 
than even in this country. I have frequently seen, 
breeding in the lakes in the high Rocky Mountains, 
golden-eyes which were probably of this species, but I 
was never so fortunate as to have any of them in the 
hand. Like the whistler, Barrow's golden-eye breeds 
in trees, laying eight to ten eggs, grayish-green in color. 
Mr. C. W. Shepard found this duck breeding in Ice- 
land, where, in the absence of trees, it built its nest in 
holes in the cracks and crevices of the lava. Barrow's 
golden-eye has been found in Alaska, on the Yukon 
River, and at Sitka, and specimens have been taken at 
other points in the north. Mr. Boardman believed that 
this species breeds in the woods of Calais, Me., though 
as yet their nests have not been discovered. Mr. Nel- 
son states that it is a winter resident on Lake Michigan, 
and is probably found generally in winter through the 
interior wherever there is open water. A number of 
specimens have been taken on the coast of Massachu- 
setts. Mr. Elliot has found it quite abundant on the St. 
Lawrence River, near Ogdensburgh, and has frequently 
killed it there over decoys. He says : "The birds would 
fly up and down the river, doubtless coming from and 
going to Lake Erie, stopping occasionally in the coves 
to feed and floating down with the current for a consid- 
erable distance, when they would rise and fly up stream 
again. My decoys were always placed in some cove or 
bend of the stream where the current was least strong, 



l8o DUCK SHOOTING. 

for I noticed the birds rarely settled on the water where 
it was running swiftly. This duck decoys readily in 
such situations and will come right in, and. if permitted, 
settle among the wooden counterfeits. They sit lightly 
upon the water and rise at once without effort or much 
splashing. The flight is very rapid and is accompanied 
with the same whistling of the wings so noticeable in 
the common golden-eye. In stormy weather this bird 
keeps close to the banks, seeking shelter from the winds. 
It dives as expertly as its relative and frequently re- 
mains under water for a considerable time. The flesh 
of those killed upon the river was tender and of good 
flavor, fish evidently not having figured much as an 
article of their diet." 





BUFFLE-HEAD DUCK. 



Charitonetta alhcola (Linn.). 

The adult male has the head and upper neck black. 
From behind and below the eye a very broad white band 
or patch extends backward to the ends of the feathers. 
The black of head and upper neck is brilliant with 
metallic reflections of green and purple. The feathers 
of head are long and loose, giving it a puffy appearance, 
and they can be raised so as to make the head seem very 
large. The back is black, fading to ashy on the upper 
tail-coverts. The tail is gray, with whitish edges. The 
lower neck, entire under parts, greater wing-coverts, 
outer scapulars and some secondaries, white. The quill 
feathers of the wing are gray, the bill is lead color, the 
eyes brown and the feet flesh color or lavender. 

181 



Io2 DUCK SHOOTING. 

The head of the female lacks the extreme puffiness of 
the male's. She is generally a dark lead color, or slaty, 
very much paler below, has a white patch on the side of 
the head behind and below the eye, and a white wing 
patch formed by the outer webs of the secondaries. The 
bill is dark lead color and the feet and legs grayish-blue. 

The male buffle-head is one of the most beautiful and 
active of North American ducks and is also one of the 
most abundant, especially along the sea-coast. It is 
confined to North America and is scattered over most of 
the continent, from the extreme North to IMexico. It is 
said not to be common in Alaska, but sometimes to oc- 
cur on the Aleutian Islands, and Dr. Stejneger found it 
in winter also about the Commander Islands, on the 
Asiatic side of the Pacific. The buffle-head breeds 
throughout much of British America, nesting in hol- 
lows in trees, and its nests have been found on the 
Yukon River, as well as in many other localities in the 
North. Mr. Boardman believes that it breeds near 
Calais, Me., and young birds, still unable to fly, are said 
to have been killed at Pewaukee Lake, in Wisconsin. 

The butter-ball is an extremely restless and busy 
bird, and in the dull times of the duck shooting, when 
the weather is still and no birds are flying, it is very 
likely to dart over the gunner's decoys and startle him 
by its unexpected presence. However, the butter-ball 
is so small, and also so swift of flight, and so expert in 
diving, that not very many of them are killed. They 
are by no means shy and often come readily to the de- 
coys, among which they alight, feed, and after swim- 



BUFFLE-HEAD DUCK. 1 8 



o 



ming about for a short time will fly off again. The 
dipper flies very rapidly, quite equaling in this respect 
the black-head, which is known for its speed on the 
wing. Usually it alights without checking itself at all 
and strikes the water with a splash, sliding along the 
surface for some little distance. Mr. Elliot's remarks 
on the diving of this species are well worth repeating. 
He says : "As a diver the butter-ball takes rank among 
the most expert of our ducks, disappearing so quickly, 
and apparently with so little exertion, that it is almost 
impossible to shoot it when sitting on the water. When 
alarmed, with a sudden flip up of its tail and a scatter- 
ing of a few drops of water, it vanishes beneath the sur- 
face, appearing almost immediately at no great distance 
from where it went under, and either dives again at 
once or takes wing, which it does easily and without 
any fuss. Sometimes half a dozen of these birds will 
gather together in a sheltered piece of water and be 
very busy feeding. A few will dive with a sudden jerk, 
as if drawn beneath the surface by an invisible string, 
and the others will quietly swim about as if on the 
watch. The first that went under water having re- 
turned to the surface, the others dive, and so it goes on 
for a long time. Occasionally all will disappear, and 
then the first one to rise seems much disconcerted at not 
finding any one on watch and acts as if he were saying 
to himself that if he 'had only known their unprotected 
state, he would never have gone under.' " 

Mr. Elliot states also that the flesh of this duck is very 
palatable and is excellent when broiled. In this species, 



1 84 



DUCK SHOOTING. 



as in others, the food regulates the excellence of the 
flesh. 

Mr. Gurdon Triimbiill gives among the names for 
this very well-known species the buffalo-headed duck, 
little brown duck, spirit duck, conjuring duck, dipper, 
robin dipper, dapper and dopper. die-dipper, mario- 
nette, butter-ball, butter-duck and butter-box. diver, 
wool-head, scotch duck, Scotchman, scotch dipper and 
scotch teal. 



^^U&Jsir,^ ^^ jS^kii*. ,f.'.,.fv.. 




,,,,,.i,,ll,fli^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 




OLD-SQUAW, LONG-TAILED DUCK. 

Clcmgiila hyc]nalis (Linn.). 



Male, in winter, with broad strip running from the 
base of the bill, back, including eye, to about the ear, 
pale gray ; at the ear darkening to black, which fades 
again to pale gray on the side of the neck ; top and back 
of head, throat and lower sides of head and upper neck, 
all about, white ; breast, back, upper tail-coverts, wing 
and long feathers of tail, black, the outer sides of the 
tail fading to white. The secondaries are reddish- 
brown ; scapulars, pearl-gray ; under parts, white. 

In the male, in summer, the pale gray line running 
back from the bill, including the eye and parts of cheek, 
are as in winter, but the remaining parts of head, neck, 

185 



1 86 LUCK SHOOTING. 

breast and upper parts generally are deep brown or 
even black. The feathers on the fore-back and the 
scapulars are margined with tan. The other upper 
parts are black, or blackish-brown, with some grayish 
on the secondaries. The four middle tail feathers are 
black ; the breast and part of the belly are dark brown, 
and the rest of the under parts white. The bill is black, 
crossed by a bar of orange, and the feet are black. 

The female, in winter, has the head, neck and lower 
parts white, marked with dusky on forehead and crown, 
as well as on the ears, chin and throat. The upper 
parts are brown, many of the feathers being bordered 
with grayish. In summer the head and neck are more 
gray and the general plumage darker. 

The old-squaw, as it is commonly called on the New 
England coast, is one of the commonest of our winter 
birds, and is found on both coasts of America, as well 
as of the Old World. It is a beautiful bird, active, 
noisy and hardy, going little further south than it is 
obliged to to procure food, although occasionally it ex- 
tends its migrations as far as Florida and California. 
In Europe it is sometimes found, in winter, in the Medi- 
terranean Sea. 

The old-squaw breeds in the Arctic regions and has 
been found in Spitzbergen, Nova Zembla, Iceland 
and Northern Alaska, as well as in Hudson's Bay. It 
commonly associates, even on the breeding grounds, in 
great flocks ; and I have seen them in Alaska in June 
and July, hundreds together. They commonly breed 
on the waters of fresh-water pools, making their nests 



LONG-TAILED DUCK. 1 87 

under low bushes, or among coarse grass, close to the 
water. The eggs are given as being only five to seven 
in number. The nest is made of grass and weeds and 
is invariably lined with down, which is of fine quality, 
apparently not much inferior to that of the eider duck. 

On their return from the North the old-squaws do 
not reach the New England coast until the weather has 
grown quite cold, long after the different varieties of 
scoters have come and established themselves in their 
winter home. Here they congregate throughout the 
winter in vast numbers, associating with the scoters and 
the eiders and yet often keeping very much by them- 
selves. The old-squaw is one of the most expert of div- 
ers and it used to be stated — and may be believed — that 
in old times it could not be shot on the water with a 
flint-lock gun. Even now it frequently dives so rap- 
idly as to apparently escape the shot, and instances are 
given of where a bird, shot at when flying low over the 
water, had dived from the wing and escaped uninjured. 

The common name of this species refers to its noisy 
habit. It is continually talking while on the water, and 
the flocks, when flying, frequently utter their musical 
cry. In almost all localities the bird takes its name from 
this call, which is difficult of imitation. Perhaps the 
Canadian syllables, Ca cd-zvee, imitate the note as well 
as anything that has been attempted. South south 
southerly is supposed to represent it, but hardly does so. 
The old-squaw is remarkable for the rapidity and the 
irregularity of its flight. A flock starting low over the 
water, to go in some direction, will zig-zag hither and 



1 88 DUCK SHOOTING. 

thither, constantly uttering their mellow cry and re- 
minding one, in their swift and darting flight, of the 
flocks of wild pigeons which used to be seen in the 
olden times. 

Beautiful and active bird though it be, the old-squaw 
is unfit for use on the table. It is always fishy, and no 
treatment with which I am ac(|uainted will render its 
flesh palatable. It feeds chiefly on shell-fish, and its 
flesh tells the story. 

In the spring, when the birds are preparing to take 
their flight to the North, they prepare themselves for 
their long journey by extended flights ; as the local gun- 
ners call it, "trying their wings." Late in the after- 
noon they rise from the water in great flocks and cir- 
cling high in the air, fly about for hours, performing 
many beautiful evolutions. The migrations are usually 
performed by night and perhaps at no very great height 
above the ground. At all events, I recall that some 
years ago, in a New England village near the Sound, 
the weather-vane one morning in April was observed to 
be missing from one of the churches. A search re- 
vealed it lying on the ground near the building, bent 
and broken, and not far from it was the body of a male 
old-squaw, which had flown against the vane with such 
force as to break off the iron pivot on which it swung. 




HARLEQUIN DUCK. 



Hisfrioiiiciis hisfrionicus (Linn.), 



The general color of the male harlequin is leaden- 
blue, marked with black, white and chestnut, as fol- 
lows : Space between base of bill and eye, with a strip 
extending along the crown, a round spot near the ear, a 
narrow strip extending from below the ear a short dis- 
tance down the upper neck, a narrow collar around the 
lower neck, a bar across the side of breast, in front of 
the bend of the wing, a part of the scapulars and ter- 
tiary feathers, tips of some of the greater wing-coverts, 
a spot on the lesser wing-coverts and a round spot on 
either side, just before the tail, white. The collar about 



1«9 



IQO DUCK SHOOTING. 

the neck, the bar on the side of the breast, bordered with 
black. A strip from the forehead to the back of the 
neck, black, bordered with rufous. The rest of the 
head and neck is dark lead color, sometimes almost 
blackish, and with glossy reflections. The rump, upper 
and under tail-coverts are black ; quills of the wing and 
tail, dusky; sides and flanks, bright tan, inclining to 
reddish. The bill and feet are bluish-gray; length 
about 1 7 inches. 

The adult female has the space between the eyes and 
bill and a spot behind the ear, white; the rest of the 
head and neck are dark brown, darkest on top ; wings 
and tail blackish ; the other parts reddish-brown, except 
the belly, which is white. 

The harlequin duck is one of the most striking and 
beautiful of our ducks. It is one of our most northern 
species and not very much is known about it. On the 
Atlantic coast it is seldom found south of Maine. It is 
a bird of the Old World as well as the New, and, in fact, 
is found over the northern portions of both hemi- 
spheres. British ornithologists, however, have de- 
clared that it is only a straggler on the European conti- 
nent, but that it occurs regularly in Iceland and Eastern 
Asia. On the other hand, we know that it is commonly 
found during the summer in the northern Rocky Moun- 
tains, and I have seen the birds, evidently mated, in the 
Sierra Nevadas. in June. There, Mr. Ridgway tells 
me that it breeds as far south, at least, as Calaveras 
County, California. 

All through the summer months in Northwestern 




< o 
Q ^ 



^ 



HARLEQUIN DUCK. 191 

Montana harlequins may be seen spending their time, in 
small numbers, on lakes, often in the high mountains, 
where the melting waters from the glaciers form curi- 
our little mountain tarns at the edge of the timber line. 
Its nest has not been found in this country, and only 
twice in Europe; once by Mr. Shepard, who states that 
he found it breeding in Iceland "in holes in the trees," 
while the Messrs. Pierson state that they found them 
also in Iceland in holes in the banks. It is altogether 
probable that in the northern Rocky and Sierra Nevada 
mountains the harlequins breed in trees, while in Alaska 
they very likely breed in holes. In the summer of 1899 
harlequins were seen abundantly on the salt water in 
Alaska, but all those taken were males. They were 
very common in Prince William Sound and at many 
points in the Bering Sea. An interesting account is 
given in the Zoologist for 1850 on the breeding in 
confinement of a pair of this species in Melbourne Gar- 
dens, Derbyshire. Eight eggs were laid, which were 
hatched about the middle of June, and several of the 
young ducks reached maturity. Some of the names 
given for this duck by Mr. Gurdon Trumbull are 
painted duck, mountain duck, rock duck, lord for the 
male and lady for the female, and squealer. 




^=r^jvg-. ^e^WF\ivS:^c'Sgs:S^ 



LABRADOR DUCK. 



Camptolainius lahradorius (Gmel. ). 



In the adult male the head, upper neck, upper breast 
and wing, except the long quill feathers, are white. A 
strip on the crown, running down over the back of the 
head, a collar about the neck, the back, rump, quills of 
wing and tail and entire under parts, black. The 
cheeks are sometimes tinged with yellowish. The long 
scapulars are pearly-gray and the tertiaries have black 
margins. The bill is black, with some orange at the 
base and along the edges; the feet are grayish-blue. 
The bill is somewhat expanded near the tip. 

192 



LABRADOR DUCK. I93 

The female has the plumage of a general brownish- 
gray tint. The tertiaries are ashy-gray, edged with 
black, and the secondaries, white, forming a distinct 
wing patch. The bird is about 20 inches in length. 

The Labrador duck, or, as it is sometimes called, the 
pied duck, is one of our North American birds which 
has already become extinct, and this only within a com- 
paratively few years. It was a bird of the sea-coast and 
was formerly not uncommon along the Atlantic, as far 
south as New Jersey, yet it seems never to have been 
very abundant. Giraud, who wrote in 1843. said of it : 
"This species is called by our gunners 'skunk duck,' so 
named from the similarity of its markings to that ani- 
mal. With us it is rather rare, chiefly inhabiting the 
western side of the continent. In New Jersey it is 
called 'sand-shoal duck.' It subsists on small shell and 
other fish, which it procures by diving. Its flesh is not 
considered a delicacy. A few are seen in our market 
every season." 

In the years 1871, 'y2 and 'yT, specimens were occa- 
sionally exposed for sale in the New York markets, but 
even at that time the bird had become so rare that orni- 
thologists were on the watch for it, and as soon as a 
specimen was exposed for sale it was bought up. 

The pied duck was a strong flier and apparently well 
able to take care of itself, and its practical extinction 
took place before gunning was practiced on any very 
great scale. It was not especially sought for as a table 
bird, and no satisfactory reason has as yet been ad- 
vanced for its disappearance. The number of speci- 



194 



DUCK SHOOTING. 



mens of the bird now existing is very small, probably 
not more than sixty in all, of which about two-thirds 
are in this country. A very beautiful group of Labra- 
dor ducks is to be seen in the American Museum of 
Natural History, in New York, where five specimens 
have been handsomely mounted in their natural sur- 
roundings. 







llll l|l!llllllllll|l|lf''IMl|IIH^ U\,ll 1 Mil MM 




STELLER'S DUCK. 



Eniconctta stcUcri (Pall.), 



In the adult male, most of the head and upper portion 
of neck are satiny white; the space between base of bill 
and eye and the tuft running across the back of the 
head, dark olive-green. The space about the eye, chin 
and throat, and band about the lower neck, the middle 
of the back, the long shoulder feathers, tertiaries and 
secondaries, glossy blue-black. The rump, upper tail- 
coverts and tail, somewhat duller black. The scapulars 
are streaked lengthwise with white, while the tertiaries 
have the inner webs of the feathers fully white, and the 
secondaries are tipped with white. The wing-coverts, 
some of the scapulars and the sides of the back are 
white. The quills of the wing are dull black, while the 
lower parts are rusty-reddish, darkest in the middle of 

195 



196 DUCK SHOOTING. 

the belly and fading on the sides and breast to buff. 
The dusky of the belly darkens toward the tail, until it 
becomes dull black. There is a spot of blue-black on 
the sides below the bend of the wing. The bill and feet 
are grayish-blue. 

The adult female is generally reddish-brown, 
speckled with dusky or black. There are two narrow 
bars across the wing, formed by the tips of the greater 
coverts and of the secondaries. The speculum is 
brownish ; under parts light brown, spotted with brown- 
ish-black ; the back sooty-brown. 

This very handsome duck is found in America only 
on the coasts of Alaska. It frequents the coast of 
Asia, however, and has been taken in Russia, Sweden, 
Denmark and Britain. It appears, however, to be only 
a straggler in Western Europe. It is distinctly an Arc- 
tic bird and more numerous in Alaska than in any other 
region. The nest is built on the ground, among the 
grass, and is well concealed. It is said to breed on St. 
Lawrence Island. 

The species is one that can interest only Alaskan 
sportsmen, but it is an exceedingly beautiful bird. 




i. 



SPECTACLED EIDER. 



Arctonctta Hschcri (Brandt). 



liti 






In the adult male the space immediately about the eye 
is silky white, bordered by a line of velvety black, be- 
fore and behind. The feathers between the eye and the 
bill are stiff and extend over the bill almost to the nos- 
tril. At the base of the bill they are white, changing to 
dark green, which grows paler toward the black bar 
before the eye. The crown, back of the head, running 
down a little way on the neck, pale olive-green. Be- 
neath the space around the eye a strip extends back to 
meet the olive-green, which is deep dull green. The 
head and neck, except as stated, are white. All the 

197 



19S DUCK SHOOTING. 

lower parts, including the upper breast, are pale leaden- 
gray ; while the whole back and wing, except the greater 
wing-coverts, the tertiaries and a patch on each side of 
the rump, are yellowish-white. The bill is orange, 
deepest along the edge, and pale on the nail. The eyes 
are pale blue or bluish-white. The feet and legs are 
yellowish. 

In the adult female the head generally is buffy, 
streaked with dusky. A strip of brown runs from the 
bill before the eye to the top of the head. The throat 
is very little streaked or spotted. The general upper 
parts are tawny, barred with black. The belly and the 
region under the tail is grayish-brown. The length is 
about 20 or 22 inches. 

The spectacled eider is another Alaskan bird of which 
not very much is known. It is a dweller in the far 
North, its range seeming to extend only from the mouth 
of the Kuskokwim River to Point Barrow, where it 
breeds. Another observer, however, gives it as occur- 
ing much further to the South, and says that it breeds 
among the Aleutian Islands, where it is a resident, al- 
though shy. The nest is built in the grass, not far from 
the water, and the eggs are from five to nine in number. 
Mr. Nelson, who has spent so much time in Alaska, and 
is very familiar with this bird, sounds a note of warning 
about it, saying that it might readily be so reduced as to 
become very rare. It is an extremely local bird, and 
with a narrow breeding range, and with the attacks 
continually made on it for food by the Eskimo it has 
every prospect of becoming scarce. 



SPECTACLED EIDER. 



199 



It is to be noted that the autumn plumage of male and 
female in this species are very nearly alike, dark brown 
with black mottling, and that the breeding dress does 
not appear to be assumed until toward spring. 

It is said that the flight of this bird is unusually swift, 
much more so than that of most other" eiders, and that 
they usually fly low over the water. 





'^-^^ 



COMMON EIDER. 

Soinaferia mollissinia horealis A. E. Brehm. 

The adult male of the common eider duck has the 
crown deep black — split behind in the middle line by a 
strip of white or greenish-white — and reaching forward 
from the eye to the bill. The upper part of the back of 
the neck and the feathers back of the ears are pale green. 
The rest of the head and neck, with the fore-breast, 
back, scapulars, wing-coverts, tertiary feathers and sides 
of rump, white, often tinged with yellow or creamy 
buff. The breast is sometimes pink tinted. The other 
under parts, the greater wing-coverts, secondaries, mid- 
dle of rump and upper tail-covert, black ; quills of the 
wing and tail, brownish-black; bill, dull orange-yellow;, 
legs and feet, orange. 

200 



COMMON EIDER 201 

The adult female is generally of a reddish-brown 
color, mostly barred with black, but the head and neck 
are merely narrowly streaked with black. The crown 
of the head is darkest. The under parts are a grayish 
rather than reddish brown, with darker bars. The tips 
of the secondaries are white, forming two bars across 
the wing. Length about 22 inches. 

The eider duck inhabits the northern shores of both 
coasts of the Atlantic. In winter it is found in more or 
less abundance along the New England coast, and I 
have seen it killed as far south as Long Island Sound. 

The eider breeds in Labrador, and to the northward, 
and in many parts of Europe is almost a domestic bird. 
The down, which is plucked from the breast of the 
female, for the lining of the nest, is a valuable article of 
commerce, and in an earlier chapter something has been 
said about the way these birds are protected and their 
down secured in Norway and Iceland. 

When seen along the coast of Southern New Eng- 
land the eider is often found associated with the scoters, 
there commonly known as coots, and when killed it is 
usually shot out of flocks of these birds. 

Mr. Gurdon Trumbull notes as names of this bird, 
and of the next, the terms sea duck and drake, shoal 
duck, Isles of Shoals duck and wamp (this being of 
Indian origin, probably from wompi, white). 




AMERICAN EIDER. 



Somafcria dresscri Sharpe. 



In this species the colors of both sexes are precisely 
like those of the preceding. The differences between 
the two lie chiefly in the manner in which the feathers 
of the front of the head meet the naked portions of the 
bill. In these eiders, on either side of the forehead a 
branch of the naked skin of the bill runs up into the 
feathers, which border it above and below. In the case 
of the common eider these branches are narrow and run 
up nearly to a point, but in the American form they are 
broad and terminate abruptly and bluntly. In the com- 
mon eider, therefore, the feather patches running down 
into the angles between the naked skin are broad, while 
in the American eider they are narrow. There is also 

202 



AMERICAN EIDER, 203 

some difference in the shape of the bihs in the two spe- 
cies, that of the common eider appearing slightly 
straighter and more slender, while in the American bird 
the upper outline of the bill in profile is slightly concave. 
Slight as are the differences between the two, they ap- 
pear to be constant and to be of specific value. 

The American eider is the commoner of the two 
along the American coast. It is said to be found in 
winter along the Atlantic as far south as the Delaware 
River, but this perhaps only in winters of unusual sever- 
ity. The American eider sometimes goes inland, and 
has been taken on the Great Lakes and in adjacent 
States, but there it is only an accidental straggler. 

Its breeding grounds are in Labrador and from there 
to the Bay of Fundy. The nest is on the ground, very 
often on small islands, at a little distance from the main- 
land, and is formed of moss, weeds and twigs. Often 
it is under the shelter of some little low-growing ever- 
green, or in the open ground, behind the shelter of a 
rock. The eggs are few in number, only six, and are 
usually deposited on the soft layer of down with which 
the nest is lined. When the mother leaves the nest she 
covers the eggs with this down. The young are dark 
mouse-color when first hatched and are at once expert 
in swimming and diving. As soon as the females begin 
to sit, the males leave them and assemble in liocks in the 
open water. The eggs are said to be of two colors — one 
a pale greenish-olive, the other much browner; the 
paler egg is sometimes spotted and splashed with 
darker. 



204 DUCK SHOOTING. 

The eiders are deep-sea feeders and subsist chiefly on 
small shell-fish, which they bring up from the bottom, 
often at great depths. They gather together in large 
flocks, and when they rise on the wing do so gradually, 
running and flapping along over the water for some dis- 
tance, much after the manner of the scoters. In fact, 
in many of their ways these birds remind us much of 
scoters. 

As might be inferred from their food, eiders are not 
desirable table birds, the flesh being usually fishy and 
very rank. 





PACIFIC EIDER. 
Somateria v-nigra Gray. 



The plumage of the adult male is extremely like that 
of the two preceding species, though the bird is some- 
what larger, with a broader and deeper bill. The black 
of the crown extends forward in the white strip beneath 
the forehead branch of the bill, but does not reach as far 
forward as the nostril. In the male there is a large 
V-shaped black mark on the throat, as in the king eider, 
but in this species the V-shaped mark is longer and nar- 
rower than in the king duck. The color of the bill is 
deep orange, almost orange-red, fading toward the tip, 

205 



206 DUCK SHOOTING. 

which is yellowish-white. The legs and feet are brown- 
ish-orange. 

The female is pale brown on the head and neck, dark- 
est on the crown, streaked everywhere with blackish. 
The upper parts are reddish, barred with black. The 
length is about 22 inches. 

This eider is the common Pacific coast form, found 
in the North Pacific, Bering Sea and on the coast of 
Siberia. It is scarcely, or not at all, known south of 
Alaska. In the Arctic Ocean it is found as far east as 
the Coppermine River. It breeds throughout much of 
this range, not only in Alaska, but on the shores of the 
Arctic Ocean. The nests are variously placed, some- 
times at quite a distance from the water ; at others, close 
to it. They are sometimes on little islands, and are 
abundantly provided with down. In Alaska the breed- 
ing ground is often in the marsh and sometimes the 
place chosen is close to human habitation. The male is 
reported as assisting in building the nest and as con- 
stantly associating with the female during the time of 
incubation, though he himself takes no share in that 
labor. The food of this eider is generally mussels and 
shell-fish, which it brings up from the deep water. 

When the young are hatched, early in July, the old 
birds begin to molt. The natives pursue the ducks in 
their canoes, striking at them with their spears. It is 
said that they do not kill many. Like the other eiders 
already spoken of, the fall plumage of the male is 
closely like that of the female, and we are told that the 
young males only attain their full adult breeding dress 



PACIFIC EIDER. 



207 



at the commencement of the third 3^ear. The Pacific 
eider is a large and handsome duck, weighing from 
four to six pounds. It is said to be loath to fly in 
stormy weather and to avoid rough water, resorting to 
the beach during wind storms or else taking to shel- 
tered bays and inlets, where the water is quiet. 





KING EIDER. 



Somateria spcctabilis (Linn.). 



In the adult male the feathers about the base of the 
bill, a small spot below and behind the eye, and a large 
V-shaped mark on the throat, black. The whole top 
and back of the head, running down to the nape of the 
neck, pearl-gray or bluish-white, darkest below, where 
it sometimes changes almost to black. The sides of 
the head, running back from the bill below, pearl-gray, 
and a patch over the ear sea-green, fading into white 
above and behind. The rest of the head, neck, middle 
of the back, most of the wing and a patch on either side 
of the rump, white ; the breast deep buff or cream-color. 
The greater wing-coverts, scapulars, or shoulder feath- 
ers, and primaries, brownish-black. The scapulars 
and tertiary feathers are falcate or sickle-shaped, bend- 
ing downward over the primaries. The hinder portion 
of the back, rump, upper tail-coverts and under parts, 

208 



KING EIDER. 209 

black ; the tail is brownish-black. Except in the breed- 
ing season, the bill is shaped much as in the ordinary- 
eider duck, but in spring there is a large, square, soft 
swelling on the bill, extending down nearly to the nos- 
trils. The feathering in the median line extends down 
further on the top of the bill than it does on the sides, in 
this respect differing markedly from any of the other 
eiders. The bill is reddish-orange, and the legs and 
feet similar, but slightly paler. The length is about 2^ 
inches. 

The adult female has the plumage buff or tawny, 
streaked on head, chin and throat with darker, the 
streaking being most abundant on the top of the head. 
The breast and sides are somewhat paler, with black 
bars across the feathers. The back and shoulder feath- 
ers are blackish-brown, tipped with yellowish. The 
wing feathers are mainly black or blackish-brown, the 
greater coverts or secondaries being tipped with white, 
to form two narrow bars across the wing. The ter- 
tiaries are reddish on the outer webs. The rump and 
upper tail-coverts are tawny, barred with black; tail, 
black ; breast and belly, blackish-brown ; under tail-cov- 
erts, reddish, barred with black. The bill is greenish- 
gray and the feet yellowish. 

Like some of the other eiders, this is a bird of cir- 
cumpolar distribution, and is found in both continents. . 
It appears to be everywhere much less abundant than 
other birds of the genus and is found chiefly in the far 
North, although it sometimes occurs on the New Eng- 
land coast. It has been found in Long Island Sound 



2 TO DUCK SHOOTING. 

and on the New Jersey coast, as well as on one or more 
of the Great Lakes and on some of the far inland rivers. 
It appears to be nowhere a very abundant species, but is 
found in the Arctic Sea, on both coasts of America, and 
is not uncommon in Alaska. All the Arctic expedi- 
tions report seeing it and many have found its nest. It 
is resident in Greenland and it is said that it occasion- 
ally breeds as far to the southward as the Bay of 
Fundy. 

Mr. Charles Linden reports it as having been taken, 
on a number of occasions, on Lake Erie, and Mr. Nel- 
son gives it as a visitor to Lake Michigan and to other 
parts of Illinois and Wisconsin ; while the Smithsonian 
Institution possesses specimens shot on Lake Erie and 
others secured on the Illinois River. 

In Alaska Dr. Dall has found it, though not south of 
the Bering Sea. It occurs, however, in the Bering Sea, 
on both the American and Asiatic coasts, not far south 
of Bering Straits. 

The king eider breeds far to the northward. Its 
nest is entirely simple, merely a hollow in the ground, in 
which pale green eggs are deposited, over which the 
female bird commonly places a layer of down. 

From what has been said of its range it will be seen 
that the king eider is not likely to come within the reach 
of the gunner, except as a very rare straggler. It is 
one of the most beautiful of ducks, and the male, if 
killed, can at once be recognized. This species feeds 
chiefly on shell-fish of various descriptions, and, as may 
be imagined, is not a desirable bird for the table. 




AMERICAN SCOTER. 



Oideinia amcricana Sw. and Rich. 



In the adult male the entire plumage is deep black; 
the neck shows faint purplish reflections; the fore part 
of the bill and a line running back to the feathers, along 
the cutting edge, black ; the remainder of bill, from be- 
fore the nostrils, much swollen, and bright orange in 
color ; the legs and feet are black. 

The adult female has the bill entirel}^ black. Above, 
the plumage is dark grayish-brown ; the feathers of the 
cheeks, back and scapulars often tipped with paler ; the 
lower parts are more nearly gray. The length is about 
i8 inches. 

The scoter is a bird of very wide distribution, being 
found on both coasts of North America, as well as on 

211 



212 DUCK SHOOTING. 

many inland lakes. On the Pacific coast it ranges from 
the Arctic to Southern California and on the Atlantic 
at least as far south as the Chesapeake Bay. Mr. Au- 
dubon, on the other hand, says that the scoter ranges 
along the entire southern coast and that it is found as 
far south as the Mississippi River. 

On its southward migration the scoter reaches 
Southern New England late in September, and often in 
open winters remains there through the whole season, 
taking its departure for the North in May. When, 
however, the weather is cold, and the shore blocked 
with ice, it moves further southward to open feeding 
grounds, returning northward as the ice disappears. 

Alaskan travelers have found this species as far 
north as Norton Sound, where it breeds, as well as on 
the east coast of Labrador. This species, with other 
scoters, also breeds in some of our inland lakes, nests 
of these birds having been found on some of the larger 
lakes in Dakota and the birds having been seen in abun- 
dance on the Yellowstone Lake, in Wyoming, all 
through the summer. 

The scoter on the New England coast is usually 
found associated with the white-winged and the surf 
scoters, which commonly outnumber it in the flocks. 

All these scoters are characterized by curiously swol- 
len and more or less hollow bills, which are highly col- 
ored. All of them are known along the eastern sea- 
board as "coots." 



Mii|||l | il!( |l ii' l !iPf|ii !II WI!iPffi!ll|illlllillliW 

lMiaiii:!'iMiii'iii!iiiirfQ!;::?!ai;;;ajsgiiMiiiti!t:atiiMi:i^ 




AMERICA. r'ELVET SCOTER. 



Oidemia dcglandi Bonap. 

The adult male has the bill expanded into a promi- 
nent knob at the base on the top. At the sides the bill 
is sunken, as if hollowed out. This knob, with the base 
of the bill and its margin, are black. The sides of the 
bill in front are red, changing to orange and then to 
white near the tip. The plumage is uniform black, 
often very deep or often brownish throughout. There 
is a small white spot behind the eye and the secondaries 
are white. 

The female is uniform dirty gray, the wings darker 
than the body. The secondaries are white, as in the 
male. The length is about 21 inches. 

213 



214 DUCK SHOOTING. 

One of the commonest of the winter sea-ducks is the 
velvet duck, more often called the white-winged coot. 
It is found on both coasts and also on the Great Lakes 
and some of the inland rivers in winter. It comes 
down to the New England coast late in September and 
spends the winter there in company with the other 
coots and the eider ducks. It is exceedingly abundant 
and is shot by the various methods described in the 
chapter on sea shooting. While migrating, or while 
taking long flights, it flies high above the water, often 
out of gunshot, but from such heights I have sometimes 
seen it brought down, either by the expedient of shoot- 
ing or shouting at it, or sometimes I have seen a gun- 
ner scale his hat high into the air, when the whole flock 
would dart 20 or 30 or 40 yards directly downward to- 
ward the water and then continue their flight. Usually 
the birds, when flying from their roosting to their feed- 
ing grounds, pass but a few feet above the water, mov- 
ing along with a strong, steady flight. 

The white-winged coot feeds almost exclusively on 
small shell-fish, which it brings up from the bottom, 
and the flesh is very far from palatable. The gunner 
on the New England coast who kills them, usually par- 
boils them for a time, and then bakes them, the result 
being a dish that is eatable, but is thought by many to 
lack character. 

The velvet ducks breed in Labrador and to the north- 
ward as far as the Barren Grounds. The nest, often 
made among underbrush or low woods, is a hollow in 
the moss, lined with down, and contains seven or eight 



AMERICAN VELVET SCOTER. 21$ 

eggs. This species, like the old-squaw and other 
coots, spends much of its time, late in the spring, in pre- 
paring for the long flight that it must make to its sum- 
mer home. The hours from three o'clock in the after- 
noon until dark are spent chiefly on the wing, and 
often it is not much before the first of June when the 
last of the coots leave the New England shore. 

On the Pacific coast this species is found in winter as 
far south as Southern California and in summer to 
the Bering Sea. In the month of July I have seen them 
on the Gulf of Georgia in vast numbers, the birds being, 
no doubt, chiefly males, the females nesting somewhere 
in the vicinity. 

The coots are regarded as exceedingly tough and 
hard to kill, and the gunners along the New England 
coast who shoot them commonly use very large shot, 
often 3's, and sometimes 2's. Birds that are only 
wounded, dive and skulk with great skill, and if there 
is any sea on the water, are likely to escape notice and 
not to be recovered. Often they dive, and apparently 
never come to the surface again, and it is believed that 
they cling to weeds at the bottom and remain there until 
dead. 

Some of the names given for this species by Mr. 
Trumbull are ]\Iay white-wing or great May white- 
wing, pied-winged coot, bell-tongue coot. Uncle Sam 
coot, bull coot, brant coot, sea brant, assemblyman, 
channel duck. 




VELVET SCOTER. 



Oidcniia fusca (Linn.). 

In the adult male the bill is much swollen near the 
gap, but is not much elevated at the base. The general 
color is orange or reddish, crossed on each side by a 
diagonal black line, running from above the nostril 
obliquely to the side of the nail. The plumage is 
brownish-black, with a small patch behind the eyes, and 
a white speculum on the wing. 

The female is sooty-gray, paler beneath, and with a 
white speculum. 

The velvet scoter is scarcely to be considered an 
American bird, being only an accidental visitor to our 
shores. It is an Old World species, which has, how- 
ever, been taken in Greenland. It is not a bird to be 
considered by the sportsmen, who will never meet 
with it. 

216 



^^^CfS^idi^^ 




Ul>«'.>>— "^KeVpto^ 



a3tl»r^— — - 



SURF SCOTER, SKUNK-HEAD. 



Oideuiia perspicillata (Linn.). 



The adult male is deep black above, changing on the 
lower parts to a very dark brownish-black. There is a 
white patch on the forehead, cut off squarely behind the 
eyes, and running out to a point a little beyond the gap 
of the bill. On the back of the head and neck there is 
another white patch, cut off squarely in front and run- 
ning down to a semi-circular ending on the back of the 
neck. The bill is swollen at the base, white and red in 
color, with a squarish patch of black on either side near 
the base. The nail is horn-color. The feet are orange, 
with dusky webs. 

The adult female is brownish-black everywhere, be- 

217 



2l8 DUCK SHOOTING. 

coming sooty or almost lead-color below, and some- 
times almost white on the abdomen. The bill is black, 
but little swollen, and, of course, the black spot shown 
in the male is not apparent. The bird's length is about 
20 inches. Mr. Ridgway states that sometimes in the 
adult male there are other white marks than those de- 
scribed, and sometimes one or the other of the white 
patches on top of the head are wanting, but these condi- 
tions are very unusual. 

This species, which is known as surf duck in the 
books, is commonly called by gunners coot, sea duck, 
skunk-head and also sometimes hollow-billed coot. It 
is peculiar to America and in habits and distribution 
does not differ markedly from our other coots. It is 
said to breed on the Arctic coast and to proceed south- 
ward as far as Bermuda. It is also commonly found 
on the Great Lakes and is not infrequently killed by 
gunners on the marshes to the south of them. Mr. 
Audubon found it breeding as far south as Labrador, 
in fresh-water marshes, and the nest was rather more 
substantial than that of many of the sea-ducks, being 
well built and lined with down. It contained five eggs, 
of a cream color. Nests found by Mr. MacFarlane 
on the Anderson River contained eight eggs. 

While vast numbers of coots winter on the New 
England coast, and seem to thrive there, numbers ap- 
parently equally great proceed further south, wintering 
in the mouths of the Delaware River and in Chesapeake 
Bay and out at sea. In these regions, however, where 
there are so many better ducks, they afe not much pur- 



SURF SCOTER, SKUNK-HEAD. 



219 



sued, and, on the whole, it may be said of these coots, 
and of the old-squaw, that they are not rapidly grow- 
ing fewer in numbers. 

Besides the names already given, Mr. Trumbull tells 
us that this duck is called horse-head and bald-pate, off 
the coast of Maine; patch-head, patch-polled coot and 
white-scop, at other points on the New England coast ; 
muscle-bill, pictured-bill and plaster-bill, snuff-taker, 
spectacled-bill coot and spectacle coot, blossom-bill and 
blossom-head, butter-boat-billed coot ; while the females 
and young are called, at various points, pishaug, gray 
coot and brown coot. 





RUDDY DUCK. 



Erismatnra rubida (Wils.). 

The adult male has the crown black, which color 
runs down on the back of the neck ; the side of head, 
including cheeks and chin, pure white ; the entire upper 
parts, reddish-chestnut, except the wing-coverts ; the 
middle of the rump and lower back, greenish-brown, 
freckled with paler. The quills of the wing and tail 
are brownish-black ; the under parts are silvery- whit- 
ish, something like the breast color of some of the 
grebes. The under tail-coverts are white ; the bill and 
feet grayish-blue; length, i6 inches. 

The female is much duller; the upper part of- the 
head is dark brown, paling on the sides of the head. 

220 



RUDDY DUCK. 221 

Often there is a white strip below the eyes, running 
ahnost from the base of the bill to the back of the 
head. The chin is white. The throat and neck are 
brownish-gray, fading to silvery on the breast and 
belly. The upper parts are grayish-brown, mottled 
and speckled with reddish. The wings and scapulars 
are dark brown ; the quills of tail and wings as in the 
male; the bill is bluish, often blackish, and the legs and 
feet, bluish-gray. The young male is still duller. 

The ruddy duck is found throughout North Amer- 
ica, and is one of the gentlest and most unsuspicious of 
our birds. It is resident in Northern South America, 
and yet it frequents the northern portions of the con- 
tinent as far as the 58th parallel. It is abundant in 
California and equally so on our South Atlantic coast 
and occurs often in Massachusetts during the spring 
migration. 

The ruddy duck, although it takes a long time to 
rise from the water, is a strong flier. It is, however, 
very much at home on the water, a rapid swimmer and 
a very good diver. The ruddy is a most gentle and un- 
suspicious little bird, and appears to pay no attention to 
the gunner, though he may be standing in plain sight, 
as it darts down and splashes into the water among the 
decoys. Until within a few years, gunners in our 
South Atlantic waters never shot these little birds, 
which were accustomed to come to the decoys and feed 
among them and then swim or fly away unmolested. 
Of late years, however, this has become a fashionable 
bird for the table, and, bringing good prices, is eagerly 



222 DUCK. SHOOTING. 

sought after by market gunners. Great numbers are 
therefore killed each season now, where formerly they 
were almost unmolested, and the result has been a very 
noticeable reduction in the numbers of these little birds. 
The ruddy duck has a great number of common 
names, most of which refer to its physical peculiarities 
or to its great gentleness. Thus it is called sleepy 
broad-bill, sleepy-head, sleepy duck, sleepy coot, sleepy 
brother, fool duck, deaf duck, booby and booby coot, 
paddy and noddy. From its tail it is called stiff-tail, 
spine-tail, quill-tail coct, pin-tail, bristle-tail, heavy- 
tailed duck, stick-tail and dip-tail diver. From its sup- 
posed toughness, or the difficulty with which it is 
killed, come such names as hard-headed broad-bill, 
shot-pouch, stub and twist, hard-head, tough-head, 
hickory-head, greaser, steel-head, light-wood knot and 
perhaps hard tack. There are a great number of other 
names, for Avhich the reader must be referred to Mr. 
Trumbull's excellent volume. 







y^f --m^'- _ 

-w —- 




"''^^-iggAi^iii^y^oj^ 



MASKED DUCK. 



Nomonyx dominicus (Linn.). 



The adult male, in full plumage, neck all around, 
back and sides, dark cinnamon-brown, the back and 
sides with the feathers broadly streaked with black ; the 
front of head, including chin, cheeks and crown, black, 
this color extending nearly to the back of the head. The 
lower parts are rusty, but the feathers of the side are 
streaked with black. The wings are brownish-black, 
with a white speculum. The under tail-coverts are 
brownish, spotted with black. The tail is dark brown ; 
the bill blue, and feet blackish; length about 15 inches. 

The female has the head black, with one or two 
brownish streaks running back from the bill. The 
chestnut is paler, verging to yellowish, and spotted 
with black; the sexes are thus much alike, but the 
female is very much duller. 

223 



224 DUCK SHOOTING. 

The masked duck is found in North America only 
as a straggler, for it belongs in the tropics. It is a 
common West Indian and South American species. It 
has been taken on Lake Champlain, in New York, in 
Massachusetts, in Wisconsin, Texas and Mexico. It 
does not appear to be anywhere an abundant species, as 
is its near relative, the ruddy duck. We are told that it 
does not seem to be at all at home on the land, and that 
when it walks it is in some degree supported by its long, 
stiff tail. Gunners should be on the watch for this 
species. 



^ 



%<■ 




nSH DUCKS. 

SUB-FAMILY Mergiuce. 

The mergansers, or, as they are often called, the fish- 
ing ducks, may be distinguished from all others of the 
AnatidcB by their narrow and round (not flattened) 
bills, always provided with sharp, backward-directed, 
tooth-like lamellae. Except for their bills, they are 
like the sea-ducks. They are birds of handsome plu- 
mage, always provided with a crest, which in the male 
may be enormously enlarged and very striking, as in 
the hooded merganser, or merely puffy, with brilliant 
iridescent hues, as in the goosander. The mergansers 
feed almost altogether on small fish, which they cap- 
ture by diving, and as a consequence their flesh is not at 
all desirable. Our species are widely distributed over 
America. 




225 







AMERICAN MERGANSER. 



Merganser americamis (Cass.), 



The adult has the head and upper neck greenish- 
black, with brilliant metallic reflections, the head being 
puffy and the feathers slightly longest on the back of 
the head. The back is black, fading to ashy-gray on 
the rump and upper tail-coverts. The primaries and 
secondaries are black, but the rest of the wing is chiefly 
white, crossed by a black bar. The under parts are 
white, tinged with salmon color, rosy or pinkish, which 
does not last long after death. In old skins, the breast 
feathers often become barred with ashy. The tail is 
ashy-gray, with bill, eyes and feet bright red. Length 
about 26 inches. 

226 



AMERICAN MERGANSER. 227 

In the female the head and neck are reddish-brown, 
and there is a long crest on the back of the head, much 
more marked than in the male. The chin and throat 
are white, the upper parts gray. About one-half of 
each secondary feather is white, forming a speculum 
on the wing. The primaries are black, the fianks and 
tail gray. The lower parts are pinkish salmon-color in 
life, fading to white. The bill and feet are red. 

Valueless as food, the great merganser is certainly 
one of our most beautiful and graceful birds. It is a 
close relative of the goosander of Europe, and was long 
considered to be the same bird. The differences on 
which they are separated are very slight. The mer- 
ganser is a resident of the extreme North in summer. 
It is found in Alaska, though apparently not very com- 
mon there ; and, in fact, it does not seem to be a very 
common bird anywhere, both the other species exceed- 
ing it in numbers. It is one of our most hardy birds, 
and one of the last to ^o South in the autumn ; and, in- 
deed, it will remain about air holes in the rivers, where 
it can fish, long after most other ducks have taken their 
departure for the South. 

It is well established that the goosander breeds in the 
hollows of trees, wherever trees are accessible, though 
some observers who have reported nests of this species 
from the far North, beyond where timber grows, state 
that it builds its nest upon the ground in the ordinary 
manner of many of the salt-water ducks. 

Definite information as to the breeding habits of this 
merganser was first given by Mr. Geo. A. Boardman, 



228 DUCK SHOOTING. 

of Calais, Me., to whom ornithology owes so much 
In Forest and Stream he has said : 

"Many years ago I was up at Grand Lake Stream 
salmon fishing, when I saw a large duck fly into a hole 
high up in a large birch tree. The log drivers said it 
was a sheldrake and had nested there many years. I 
was anxious to see what kind of a merganser it was. 
After the log drivers' day's work was done one of them 
by driving spikes managed to get up. The old bird 
flew out, and he brought down one tgg, and said there 
were seven more. I then got the man to arrange a 
noose over the hole, and the next morning we had the 
old bird hung by the neck and the eight eggs were new 
to science. The log drivers said they had seen the old 
bird bring down the young in her bill to the water. 
Several years later Mr. John Krider, of Philadelphia, 
went with me to the same tree and collected the eggs. 
He was a well-known collector. Mr. Audubon was 
mistaken in his account of the nesting of this mergan- 
ser, since he describes it as nesting on the ground 
among rushes, in the manner of the serrator, having a 
large nest raised 7 or 8 inches above the surface." 

Often, while travelling along streams in uninhabited 
parts of the country, one may come upon a mother mer- 
ganser and her brood of tiny young and may drive 
them before him for miles along the stream, the birds 
keeping well out of his way, and the mother watching 
over them with the tenderest care. It is a curious sight 
to see these little tiny creatures run, as it seems, over 
the surface of the water, at the same time flapping their 



AMERICAN MERGANSER. 



22<) 



tiny featherless wings, but making extraordinary prog- 
ress. 

While the goosander, Hke others of its kind, feeds 
almost exclusively on fish, it is said that in the autumn 
its flesh is not noticeably bad, but that in spring it is ex- 
ceedingly rank and oily. 





RED-BREASTED MERGANSER, SHELDRAKE. 



Merganser serrator (Linn.), 



The adult male has the head greenish-black, with 
some metallic reflections of violet and purple. The 
crest is a ragged one, chiefly on the back of the head ; 
the feathers are irregular, but few of them being long. 
There is a well-marked white collar around the upper 
neck, below the black. The lower neck and breast are 
pale pinkish brown, streaked with black from above 
downward. The back and inner scapulars are black ; the 
lower back and rump, grayish, waved with black and 
white; the tail grayish-brown. The wing is chiefly 
white, crossed by two black bars. The primaries are 
brownish-black, and the outer webs of the inner secon- 

230 



RED-BREASTED MERGANSER, SHELDRAKE. 23 1 

daries edged with the same color. On the side of the 
breast, in front of the bend in the wing, is a patch of 
white feathers, margined with black. The sides are 
barred with black and white, and the rest of the under 
parts white. The bill, eyes and feet are bright red. 
Length about 22 inches. In this species the nostrils 
are situated near to the base of the bill, whereas in the 
goosander they r^rc nearly half way between the base 
and tip of bill. This character will enable the observer 
to distinguish the two. 

The adult female has the top of the head and crest 
reddish-brown; the sides of head and neck somewhat 
paler, fading to white on the throat. The upper parts 
are dark ashy-gray; the sides almost the same, but 
somewhat paler. There is a white patch on the wing, 
divided by a black bar. The under parts are white, 
often with a pinkish or salmon tinge in both sexes, but 
this is by no means always present. The bill, legs and 
feet are like those in the male, but perhaps a little 
duller. 

Like the goosander, this species belongs to the 
Northern Hemisphere at large, and is found in Europe, 
China, Japan and other islands of the Pacific. Mr. 
Shepard found it breeding in Iceland, in company 
with Barrow's golden-eye, and Old World observers 
generally have reported it as abundant in the North. 
It occurs regularly as a resident in Greenland, and, of 
course, in North America is quite a common species. 
It has been reported, in summer, from Alaska, and 
from Maine, and breeds in both sections. Mr. Mac- 



2^2 DUCK SHOOTING. 

Farlane found it also breeding on the Anderson River, 
in the far North. The nest is reported to be closely 
similar to that of the black duck, and the parent often 
lines it with down plucked from her breast. 

Like the preceding species, the red-breasted mergan- 
ser is a tough and hardy bird, well fitted to endure our 
northern winters, and not proceeding southward so 
long as there are any open waters in which it can gain 
a livelihood. It spends much of its time on the salt 
w^ater and associates more or less with the winter sea- 
ducks of the New England coast, but more perhaps 
with the whistlers than with others. 

The red-breasted merganser feeds altogether on fish, 
and for this reason has no value whatever as a table 
bird. Mr. D. G. Elliot, in his excellent work on North 
American Wild Fowl, gives a graphic description of 
their fishing, which is well worth reproducing. He 
says : "When engaged in fishing, by their rapid diving 
and manoeuvring beneath the waters, they cause the 
small fish — if the schools are of any size — to become 
widely scattered, and many rise close to the surface. 
The gulls take advantage of such opportunities, and 
pounce upon their luckless finny prey from above, and 
then, with ducks diving into the depths and gulls 
plunging from above, the scene is a very lively one. I 
remember on one occasion watching a number of this 
merganser engaged in fishing in a cove, when their 
movements attracted to them a large flock of Bona- 
parte's gull (Larus Philadelphia), which hovered over 
the ducks for a moment and then began to plunge head 



RED-BREASTED MERGANSER, SHELDRAKE. 233 

foremost into the water, one after another, in rapid 
succession, emerging, frequently with a small fish in 
the bill. The mergansers paid no attention to their 
fellow-fishermen, although at times a plunging gull 
would come perilously near one of the saw-billed gen- 
try as he rose from the depths; and what with the 
rising and disappearing mergansers, and the air above 
them filled with the forms of the darting gulls, execut- 
ing all manner of swift and graceful evolutions, the 
scene was very spirited and full of animation." 

The red-breasted merganser is swift of wing, and as 
might be imagined, an expert diver. It frequently 
comes in very gently to decoys, dashing along at great 
speed, until it reaches the point where it wishes to 
alight, and then, without checking its flight, throwing 
itself breast down upon the water, and sliding over it 
for some distance. After alighting, it looks about for 
a moment, alternately raising and depressing its crest, 
and if it sees nothing to alarm it, goes to work fishing. 
There is no reason for shooting it, as it is worthless 
for food. 

Among the common names applied to this bird, in 
different sections of the country, are sheldrake, saw- 
bill, fisherman, pied sheldrake, shelduck and big saw- 
bill. 




HOODED MERGANSER. 

Lophodytes cucullatus (Linn.). 

Adult male has the head, neck, back and scapulars, 
bhck. The very long full crest is pure white, mar- 
gined with black. The wing-coverts are gray, fading 
to ash color behind, and the greater coverts are black 
at the base and tipped with white, showing a distinct 
black and white band across the wing. The secon- 
daries are white, the basal portion black, which gives 
the effect of two wide white wing-bars, bordered in 
front by two narrow black wing-bars. In front of the 
wing, on the side of the breast, are two black and two 
white bars, crescent-shaped. The sides and flanks are 
rusty-brown, or tawny, growing darker toward the 
tail, and crossed by fine, black lines. The under parts 

234 



HOODED MERGANSER. 235 

generally are white; the under tail-coverts streaked 
with dusky. The bill is black, eye bright yellow and 
the feet yellowish. Length about 18 inches. 

In the female the head and crest are reddish-brown, 
and the upper parts are grayish-brown. The chin and 
throat are white; the flanks grayish-brown. There is 
a patch on the wing, white, crossed by a black bar, and 
the under parts generally are white. The bill is yel- 
lowish, darkening to brown on the margin and on the 
nail. 

The hooded merganser is one of the most striking of 
our North American ducks. It is exclusively a North 
American species and occurs in Europe only as a strag- 
gler. Throughout the whole of North America, how- 
ever, it is generally distributed, and seems to be no less 
abundant, for example, in Nebraska than it is on the 
Atlantic or Pacific coasts. 

The hooded merganser breeds over much of the 
country, in suitable localities. Mr. Boardman has 
found it breeding abundantly in Maine, where its nests 
were always found in the hollows of trees, the cavity 
being usually lined with grass, leaves and down. He 
has related the following curious incident in regard to 
the breeding of this bird : 

"On one of my collecting trips my attention was 
called by the log drivers to a singular contest between 
two ducks — it proved to be a female wood duck and a 
female hooded merganser — for the possession of a hol- 
low tree. Two birds had been observed for several 
days contesting for the nest, neither permitting the 



2:i^C:> DUCK SHOOTING. 

other to remain in peaceful occupancy. The nest was 
found to contain eighteen fresh eggs, of which one- 
third belonged to the merganser, and as the nest was 
lined with the down of the merganser it appeared prob- 
able this bird was the rightful owner of the premises." 

Mr. Audubon stated that the hooded merganser bred 
in Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana; and Dr. Bachman be- 
lieved that it breeds in South Carolina. It certainly 
breeds in Florida. During its migrations, the hairy- 
head, as it is often called, is common in New England, 
and generally all along the coast, at least as far as 
South Carolina. In the marshes of Currituck Sound 
I have seen them in great numbers, sometimes in flocks 
of over one hundred individuals. 

The hooded merganser is a bird of exceedingly 
swift flight, and may often be taken at a little distance 
for a canvas-back or black-head, as it flies swiftly to- 
ward one. It is an unsuspicious bird, coming up read- 
ily to decoys, striking the water with a swift rush and, 
for a few moments after alighting, swimming about 
alertly, as if to observe its surroundings. Usually it 
flies with great directness, and is not easily frightened 
into changing its course. The hooded merganser is 
an extremely expert swimmer and diver, and it is a 
beautiful sight to watch a small body of them, as one 
sometimes may, when they are feeding without knowl- 
edge of the presence of an enemy. At such times the 
startling plumage of the male is seen to very great ad- 
vantage, and one is greatly attracted by the beauty of 
his plumage and the grace of his motions. 



HOODED MERGANSER. 237 

This bird rejoices in a variety of names, of which 
water-pheasant, hairy-crown, hairy-head, saw-bill 
diver, little saw-bill, swamp sheldrake, spike-bill and 
cock-robin are the most familiar. 



The smew, Mcrgiis albellus, was reported by Audubon to have 
been taken in Louisiana, near New Orleans, in 181 7. The bird 
was a female. Since that date no specimens have been reported ^ 
taken within the United States. If the bird ever occurs on this 
continent it is only an accidental straggler. It is perhaps more 
likely that in the case of the specimen taken by Audubon there was 
some mistake of identification. However, the description is given 
here, taken from Mr. Elliot's "Wild Fowl" : "Adult male, general 
plumage, white. A large patch at base of the bill, including the 
lores and eyes, lower portion of nuchal crest, middle oftheback and 
two crescentic narrow lines on side of breast, outer edge of scapu- 
lars and rump, jet black. Upper tail-coverts, gray; edges lighter. 
Middle wing-coverts, white ; greater coverts and secondaries, black, 
tipped with white. Primaries, blackish-brown. Tail, dark gray. 
Sides and flanks undulated with fine black lines on a gray ground. 
Bill, bluish ; nail, lighter. Iris, bluish white. Legs and feet, bluish 
lead color ; webs, darker. Total length, about i6-)4 inches ; wing, 
7 6-10; culmen, iJ4 ; tarsus, lY^. 

"Adult female. — Head and nape, chestnut brown ; lores and 
cheeks, brownish black. Throat and sides of neck, white. Upper 
parts, brownish-gray, darkest on the rump ; some feathers on back 
tipped with ashy gray. Sides and flanks, brownish-gray. Under 
parts, white. Tail, brown-gray." 




PART II. 



WILDFOWL SHOOTING. 




WILDFOWL SHOOTING. 



If it be true, as has often been said, that the enjoy- 
ment taken in any sport is proportioned to its difficul- 
ties and hardships, then we may readily comprehend 
why wildfowl shooting is popular. To be sure, there 
are other reasons ; the rewards are sometimes great, 
and though no description of shooting is more uncer- 
tain than this, yet as man is a hopeful creature, and usu- 
ally believes that he will be fortunate, even though all 
his fellows are unlucky, men continue to go duck shoot- 
ing, even though the measure of success with which 
they are usually rewrrded may be very meagre. One 
good day or one successful expedition, will long re- 
main fresh in th^ duck shooter's memory and will lure 
him on to make trip after trip, year after year, in the 
confident hope that some time this good fortune will 
come to him again. In the faith that his success w^ill 
repeat itself, he gladly endures cold, hunger, wet, and 
even danger, over and over again. 

As the finest weather for duck shooting is what is 
usually denominated foul weather — that is windy, 
cloudy, or rainy, often with snow squalls and a tem- 
perature so low that ice forms — the gunner must 
always go prepared to suffer some discomfort. If his 
shooting is done from a boat and in a place where the 

241 



242 DUCK SHOOTING. 

wind has any sweep he is sure to get wet and may- 
even be swamped ; or if it should happen that he guns 
in a locality where there are wide flats which may be 
overlaid by a skim of ice, too thick to be pushed through 
with a boat, yet hardly strong enough to bear one's 
weight, there is danger of a wetting, if not of some- 
thing worse ; for the mud is deep and sticky, and he 
who is once mired in it will escape only with difficulty 
and discomfort. 

In old times it was taken for granted that the duck 
shooter should be uncomfortable, but of late years we 
have largely changed that. The older gunners who 
in their youth thought nothing of shivering all day in 
a thin coat under the icy wind, or of standing for hours 
waist deep in the water, when the flight was on, or of 
lying out where the flying spray reached them and 
froze as it touched their garments, now do none of 
these things. They provide themselves with thick, 
warm clothing, and with overgarments of rubber. 
They take lunches with them and sometimes even carry 
small stoves in boat or blind by which to warm their 
food or themselves if the weather becomes too bad. 

But with all these added comforts has come one great 
drawback which outweighs them all ; this is the great 
scarcity of fowl. In old times, given suitable weather 
conditions, duck shooting on most of our waters was 
likely to be successful. Now, even with the best of 
weather, the chances are against success. 

In the pages that follow I have endeavored, by means 
of description and accounts of shooting trips, to give a 



WILDFO WL SHOO TING. 



243 



fairly accurate notion of most of the methods by which 
ducks are killed in North America. These methods 
vary to some extent with the different localities in 
which they are practiced, and they grade into one an- 
other so that it is not always easy to draw a sharp line 
between two methods of the sport. I have tried to 
cover the whole country and thus to make the volume 
of interest and of use to duck shooters wherever they 
may be. 




SWAN SHOOTING. 

Swan shooting- can hardly be characterized as a 
sport, for the few swans that are killed are shot chiefly 
by accident, when they fly over points where gunners 
are concealed waiting for ducks, or at times when, with 
the geese, they come up to goose decoys. Most of 
those killed during the winter are secured in the Chesa- 
peake Bay and on Currituck Sound, where they winter 
in considerable numbers, flocks of two or three hundred 
sometmies being seen. On the occasion of a freeze, 
even larger numbers gather together, looking, as they 
sit along the marsh or in the air holes, like great drifts 
of snow. 

Swans are sometimes shot when standing on the 
shore of the marshes ; this can only be done when the 
wind is blowing hard on the shore. Under such con- 
ditions the gunner is sometimes able to land at a dis- 
tance from the bird, and to creep through the reeds, 
within gunshot, since the swan cannot hear him on ac- 
count of the wind. 

Swans decoy readily, and occasionally the profes- 
sional gunners have a few wooden swan decoys on the 
house boats which they inhabit and in which they move 
from place to place, but nowhere, so far as I am aware, 
is the shooting of swans made a business. One or two 
of the ducking clubs on Currituck Sound have small 
stands of live swan decoys which have been captured 

244 



SJVAN SJiOOTIXG. 245 

from time to time, which they occasionahy tie out when 
they go to shoot geese, but on the whole the number 
of swans kihed each year is very smah, and does not 
nearly equal the young bred each season. There seems 
good reason for believing, therefore, that the swans are 
holding their own, if not increasing, and in many of 
the localities where they pass the winter, professional 
gunners aver that the swans are now more numerous 
than they were in old times. 

Swans do not dive, but bring up their food from the 
bottom by reaching down with their long necks and 
tearing off the grass with their powerful bills. They 
are wary birds and not easily approached. Sometimes 
they sit on the w-ater long enough for a boat to sail up 
within shot of them, but this is unusual. They rise 
from the water slowly, flying a long way before they 
fairly get up into the air, paddling with their great feet, 
and striking the water with the tips of their strong 
wangs, so as to make a great noise. As they can rise 
only against the wind, advantage is sometimes taken 
of this fact to sail down on them, and a shot may 
then be had. When changing from one feeding 
ground to another, or from the feeding to the roosting 
ground, they usually fly high, provided the weather is 
calm and bright ; but if the wind blows hard, or it is 
raining or snowing, they often pass along within easy 
gunshot of the marsh, and it is on such occasions that 
they are chiefly killed. Each flock usually follows the 
course taken by its predecessor, and if the gunner hap- 
pens to be in the line of flight, and the weather condi- 



246 DUCK SHOOTING. 

tions are propitious, he may have several shots during 
a morning or an afternoon. I recall having seen one 
man, a number of years ago, pull down three great 
swans from the sky just as the sun was setting. 

The note of the common swan is very different from 
that of his western relative. It is a plaintive, rather 
high-pitched call, often repeated, and can be fairly well 
imitated by blowing into the neck of a wide-mouthed 
bottle. On the principal shooting grounds of the 
South the boatmen are familiar with the call-note of 
the swan, and imitate it faultlessly. This skill often 
gives the gunner an opportunity for a shot which he 
would not otherwise have. 

Mr. D. G. Elliot, in his admirable work on the "Wild 
Fowl of North America," has this to say about the 
notes uttered by the wounded swan : "The song of the 
dying swan has been the theme of poets for centuries 
and is generally considered one of those pleasing myths 
that are handed down through the ages. I had killed 
many swans and never heard aught from them at any 
time, save the familiar notes that reached the ears of 
everyone in their vicinity ; but once, when shooting in 
Currituck Sound over water belonging to a club of 
wdiich I am a member, in company with a friend, Mr. 
F. W.Leggett, of New York, a number of swans passed 
over us at a considerable height. We fired at them, 
and one splendid bird was mortally hurt. On re- 
ceiving his wound the wings became fixed, and he com- 
menced at once his song, which was continued until the 
water was reached, nearly half a mile away. I am per- 



SWAN SHOOTING. 247 

fectly familiar with every note a swan is accustomed to 
utter, but never before or since have I heard any hke 
those sung by this stricken bird. Most plaintive in 
character and musical in tone, it sounded at times like 
the soft running of the notes in an octave : 

" 'And now 'twas like all instruments, 
Now like a lonely flute; 
And now it is an angel's song 

Which makes the heavens be mute,' 

and as the sound was borne to us, mellowed by the dis- 
tance, we stood astonished and could only exclaim : 
'We have heard the song of the dying swan.' " 

Occasionally, if a cygnet should become separated 
from the flock with which it has been feeding, it shows 
itself very gentle, and can sometimes be called up to a 
bunch of goose or even of duck decoys. I have seen 
this happen, the bird coming in close to the water and 
passing over the decoys. It then turned and flew over 
them once again, when it was killed by the gunner. 

A wounded swan is very difficult to recover. These 
birds cannot dive effectively, but can and do swim, so 
as to lead the pursuing boat a long chase. When crip- 
pled, they usually swim right up into the wind's eye, 
and as they can swim faster than a boat can be rowed, 
they often escape. 

The cygnets of both species of our swans are gray, 
and these young birds should always be chosen when 
the opportunity for a shot presents itself. Swan shoot- 
ing, however, as already remarked, is largely a matter 



248 DUCK SHOOTING. 

of accident, and while 1 have known of ten being killed 
in a day, at a goose box, I have also known of whole 
seasons to elapse without a single shot being had by- 
men who were devoting themselves to duck and goose 
shooting. 

It is well for the duck shooter to carry with him, 
besides the cartridges of B or BB shot with which 
he will provide himself, on the chance of getting a shot 
at a flock of geese, a few cartridges of T or OO buck- 
shot, for long shots at swans. 

Although swans are such large birds, and rise with 
difficulty from the water, they nevertheless fly with 
great swiftness, and the gunner must recollect this, and 
must shoot well ahead of them. If the swans are fly- 
ing against the wind, he should aim at the bird's head, 
remembering that a single pellet striking a swan in the 
neck is quite as likely to be effective in bringing it down 
as two or three shots which may strike it in the body. 
If, however, the bird is flying down wind, and high up 
in the air, the gun should be held somewhat in advance 
of the point of the bill. Allowance must always be 
made for the great size of the bird. It would seem to 
the novice as if a mark such as this could scarcely be 
missed, but this very size and the swiftness of the 
bird's flight are likely to deceive. 

As swans are usually shot overhead, they sometimes 
fall almost in the gunner's blind, or, at all events, very 
close to him. It_ is an impressive sight to see one of 
these great birds, struck with a fatal charge, come tum- 
bling to the earth. Its great size, its broad expanse of 



SiVAN SHOOTING. 



249 



wing and its long neck make it appear even larger than 
it really is, and when it strikes the ground it does so 
with a thud which seems to shake the marsh. 

I once killed and weighed an American swan which 
turned the scale at 25 pounds; how much larger they 
may grow, I do not know. At all events, they are 
royal birds. 




GOOSE SHOOTING. 

The wild goose has long been proverbial for his shy- 
ness and wariness, and he well deserves the reputation 
that he has gained, and yet sometimes he is found to be 
"as silly as a goose." So that the gunner who follows 
the geese enough to see much of them, will find that at 
one time great acuteness and at another a singular lack 
of suspicion are present in the ordinary wild goose. 
Few birds are more difficult to approach than these, 
and yet few come more readily to decoys or are more 
easily lured from their course by an imitation of their 
cry. 

Constantly pursued for food, their experience, 
almost from the egg shell, has taught them suspicion. 
On the breeding grounds in the North, at the time when 
the young geese are well grown, but as yet unable to 
fly, great numbers are killed by Indians and Eskimo, 
who, assisted by their dogs, drive the birds out of the 
shallow pools in the marshes, where they dwell, and 
spear them with their bone tridents, or catch them in 
nets, or kill them with sticks. In the same way many 
of the adults also are destroyed during the molting 
season. 

Several instances have occurred where swans and 
geese — killed by gunners in the United States — still 
bore in their bocHes evidences of having been wounded 
by the aborigines of the far North. The United States 

250 



GOOSE SHOOTING. 251 

National Museum has a number of examples of this 
kind, where the birds' bodies have been pierced by long 
arrow heads, which remained in the wound and were 
covered up in its healing. Many years ago there was 
figured in Forest and Stream the wing of a swan which 
still bore, lying between the radius and ulna, a long 
copper arrow head, which must have been shot into the 
bird somewhere in the far Northwest. The old wound 
had healed, and the bird when killed was in good con- 
dition. 

Notwithstanding the annual destruction by the na- 
tives, there are always left vast numbers of geese to 
take their flight southward at the approach of winter, 
but when they reach the northern confines of the United 
States they find awaiting them a horde of gunners bent 
on their destruction. 



ON THE STUBBLES. 

In the interior, and especially on the high plains of 
the wheat-producing belt of Manitoba, the Dakotas 
and Nebraska, geese are shot in two principal ways. 

Of these, the more common is shooting them in the 
grain fields from which the crops have been harvested, 
to which the birds resort for food. They pass the night 
in lakes or rivers, not far from the feeding ground, 
and in the early morning take their flight to the stub- 
bles, there to feed during the day. The gunners pre- 
pare as blinds, or places of concealment, pits dug in the 



25-' DUCK SHOOTING. 

fields, the earth being carried away to some distance 
and scattered over the ground, so that there shall be no 
fresh soil exposed to attract the attention of the flocks 
and render them suspicious. About the pits are set up 
the decoys, which usually consist of sheet-iron profiles 
of geese, on sharp-pointed iron standards implanted 
in the ground, so that when seen from the direction 
from which the birds are coming, they look like a flock 
of geese standing on the ground. On these, and on his 
power of calling, the gunner, hidden in the pit, de- 
pends. 

He is in his blind by daylight, and soon after this 
the flight begins. If he has had time to study the habits 
of the birds, his blind is placed directly in the line of 
flight, between the roosting and the feeding ground, 
and his decoys are likely to call down to within gun- 
shot many of the passing flocks. Sometimes, if two or 
three men are shooting together, they will dig their pits 
about a gun-shot apart, and at right angles to the line 
of the birds' flight. In such a case they plant their de- 
coys midway between the pits, with the result that the 
flocks which come dow^n to them are likely to offer shots 
to the occupants of the two pits between which thev 

fly. _ 

While most of the birds killed are likely to fall at 
once, there will still be many which, struck by one or 
two pellets, or hit too far behind, will carry ofif the 
shot, and, gradually lowering their flight, will come to 
the ground a long way from the pit. It is important, 
therefore, that each flock shot at should be watched as 



GOOSE SHOOTING. 255 

it goes away, in order that birds hard hit, but still able 
to proceed for some distance, may be seen to separate 
themselves from the flock and to come down. Unless 
very carefully marked, such birds are likely to be lost to 
the gunner, unless he is provided with a dog. 

At every lull in the flight, it is the practice to leave 
the pit and go out to gather the dead geese ; and toward 
the middle of the day, when the morning flight has 
ceased, the more distant ground should be carefully 
looked over by the gunner, and, if practicable, systemat- 
ically hunted out with a dog. The result of this search 
will often add largely to the bag. 

Sometimes, instead of digging pits in the stubble 
fields, the gunners conceal themselves in the straw 
stacks which may still be standing in the field, and do 
their shooting from them. The straw stacks having 
been there before the geese came in the fall, are familiar 
objects to the birds, and cause them no alarm. Often 
they pass close over them or feed on the ground near 
them. Where these stacks are used for hiding places, 
the decoys are scattered around them in the most con- 
venient situation. 

It is not common for the passing flocks to alight with 
the decoys in the stubble fields ; usually by the time that 
the birds have approached close to them, the decoys 
are recognized as deceptions, and the flock turns off. 

Goose shooting in the wheat stubbles is also practiced 
in parts of A\'ashington. Pits are dug and decoys put 
out, just as in the stubbles of Dakota and Nebraska, and 
the birds come readily to the decoys. 



254 DUCK SHOOTING. 



ON THE SAND-BARS. 

Sand-bar shooting, which was formerly practiced 
with great success on some of the larger rivers of the 
West, especially on the Platte, is somewhat similar in 
character to the shooting on the feeding grounds, ex- 
cept that it takes place early in the morning and late in 
the afternoon, when the birds come to the river to drink, 
as well as to provide themselves with the sand and 
gravel which are as necessary to them as food. The 
blind may be a hole dug in the sand-bar, or perhaps a 
pile of drift-wood and trash, in which the gunner con- 
ceals himself. The decoys are similar to those used in 
stubble shooting, and are placed between the water and 
the blind. The birds usually come in each day at about 
the same hour, and so regular are their habits that one 
familiar with a locality could almost set his watch by 
their arrival. In this shooting the birds are much more 
disposed to come to the decoys than in stubble shooting, 
and often appear to wish to alight with them. 

The birds commonly killed in this form of shooting 
are the Canada goose, Hutchins's goose, the white- 
fronted goose, or prairie brant, the blue goose and the 
snow goose. 

If the geese are no longer killed on the Platte River 
in their old numbers, they have not altogether deserted 
that stream in their southern journey. They still resort 
to it, but overshooting has taught them caution, and 
the methods by which they are killed have wholly 




A GOLDEN-EYE NESTING PLACE. 
Photographed ty Wm. Brewster. (See p. 176.) 



GOOSE SHOOTING. 255 

changed. At the present time they go into the river 
late, pay no attention whatever to decoys, and have be- 
come so wary that shooting them on the sand-bars is 
hardly attempted. When they rise they no longer circle 
about, but at once get up in the air as high as possible, 
keeping directly over the middle of the river, and so 
usually out of shot of concealed gunners. Many and 
bitter have been the complaints of late years by the men 
who used to go goose shooting to this famous ground, 
but the birds have learned their lesson well, and it may 
be doubted if sand-bar shooting will ever again be prac- 
ticed on the Platte with any great degree of success. 

The geese now killed in the vicinity of that river are 
secured chiefly by stubble shooting, much as they are 
captured in Dakota, and a recent account of these meth- 
ods is given in the following article contributed to 
Forest and Stream in 1899, by a writer who signs him- 
self "Invisible." He says: 

Readers who have been there need not be told of the 
past glories of duck and goose shooting on the wide- 
flowing Platte in Nebraska, but to those who have not 
hunted on the once famous river, a description of the 
stream, the country and the methods employed to bag 
the wary honkers may be interesting. 

The Platte is a shallow, wide stream from one-half 
mile to one mile wide in some places, and the bottom is 
entirely of sand. Tn late April and in May and June it 
rises or gets on a "boom," as it is generally called. Then 
the water is from three to six feet deep in all the main 
part of the river, and in the main channel from ten to 



256 DUCK SHOOTING. 

even fifteen feet in some particular places. A beautiful 
valley, smooth and level as a floor, stretches away for 
miles from both sides in some places, and in others only 
on one side, when the high bluffs come up to the bank. 
Beyond this level valley are the high lands, irregular 
lines of sand bluffs, and on the high table-land beyond 
is the feeding grounds of the great army of geese and 
■ducks that frequent the Platte every spring and some- 
times in the fall. Geese and ducks are not as plentiful 
here now as years ago ; while there are a good many 
birds here every favorable spring, there is not one to 
the fifty there used to be in years gone by. Ten and 
fifteen years ago fifteen to twenty geese were a common 
thing for one man to kill in one day, or even in a half 
day's hunt. A friend claimed to have killed fifty-two 
geese one afternoon from 2 o'clock to sundown, and no 
one who knows the man or the numbers of birds doubts 
the claim. But these are past supplies, never to be seen 
on the Platte again. At the present time on stormy 
days, if a hunter is in a good place, he may be able to 
bag in the course of a day ten, or maybe fifteen or 
twenty, geese, and as many ducks. But these days and 
chances are, indeed, very rare. Very much oftener the 
hunter comes in with one goose and a few ducks, or if it 
be a bad day he comes in empty-handed. 

I live within one day's drive of the river, and in the 
spring a party of four or five go to the old Platte for a 
two or three weeks' hunt and a general good time. 
Landing at the' river about 4 o'clock in the evening, 
after a good drive of thirty-five miles, we are made wel- 



GOOSE SHOOTING. 257 

come by an old friend who lives about forty rods from 
the river; we put up our team and then commence to 
pitch tent, for we come prepared to camp out. While 
working around camp we see long strings of ducks and 
geese come sailing leisurely in from their feeding 
grounds out on the bluffs and in the valley; old-time 
memories are revived, and we all work with a vim to 
get the tent up and banked and ditched around; we 
carry hay to make our bed, and then get supper. When 
this is all done it is too late to do any shooting. Shells 
are gotten out, guns are examined, hunting suits are 
laid out handy, and everything is put in readiness for 
an early start in the morning. While all this was going 
on, ducks and geese have been alighting in the river, 
and several hundred geese are out on the sand-bars, 
making merry music for our ears. The musical honk- 
a-honk is heard after it gets dark, as some tardy mem- 
bers come in to their roost on the sand-bars. 

W^e go to bed with the intention of having goose for 
dinner next day if Dame Fortune shall see fit to send a 
flock our way. We all arise next morning before day- 
light, eat a hasty breakfast, don dead grass color suits, 
and, with a dozen decoys each and a gun, sally forth, 
going out where we know they feed in a corn or 
wheat field. Arriving at the field, we dig a pit, place 
the loose dirt where it won't be conspicuous, then put 
out the decoys, and settle ourselves comfortably and 
await the coming of a flock of honkers, or perhaps 
ducks. We are in sight of the rim, and pretty soon we 
see some rise up and start for the feeding grounds. We 



258 DUCK SHOOTING. 

watch every movement made by the flock. They rise 
high up as they clear the river bank and head directly 
for us. We crouch low in the blind with guns in readi- 
ness, and goose-call to our lips. They don't see the 
decoys, for it is not very light yet. As they come nearer 
they come down a trifle ; yes, they see the decoys. The 
leader sets his wii.igs and drops below the others, and 
they sail gracefully for the decoys. But, alas ! they 
turn, about the time we are sure we have a shot, and by 
a graceful sweep go by to one side out of range, and 
alight just back of us about 150 yards. 

However, we settle down as we see another flock get 
up out of the river. They go up and start out on the 
same line with the other flock. They head directly for 
the other flock on the ground behind me, and, reassured 
by seeing the others there, they drop down within 40 
yards of the ground, and come almost directly over me. 
I rise with gun in hand, four reports in quick succession, 
and three noble Canada geese fall to the ground ; and 
one other starts, then rises and starts on, but one more 
shot and he comes tumbling down to earth. The fun 
has started in earnest. The geese come out in small 
flocks, and the guns are booming in every direction. In 
two hours the flight has ceased, and we gather up our 
geese and decoys and start for camp. We sum up at 
camp : four guns have bagged eleven geese and five 
ducks in the two hours' shoot. 

The next day the wind blows hard from the north, 
and snow is falling in large flakes. It is cold ; but we 
start out to try our luck about 2 o'clock in the afternoon. 



GOOSE SHOOTING. 259 

We separate and take up position in the willow thickets 
that abound along the river bank. With the river on 
the north of us, feeding grounds are a great deal closer 
on the south side, so, contrary to their regular habits, 
the birds come out with the wind, and come back flying 
low, but with no good results ; so I concluded to get in 
a good sheltered place and wait for some to come over, 
if I had to wait all day. They flew on all sides, ducks 
and geese both, some barely clearing the ground. Just 
to the south of me was open ground for about 200 
yards, then a high bluff with some trees growing on 
the sides and rising above the table land above. My 
patience was nearly exhausted, when just behind these 
trees came a flock of mallards. I did not see them till 
they rose to clear these trees. As I stood in a thick 
stand of willows, they ne\'er saw me, but came on just a 
little to my left about 40 yards high. They looked big 
and grand. 1 could distinguish all their fine colorings 
as they came closer. I rose up and made a double on 
two fine drakes that were nearest to me. Having re- 
trieved these, I had not long to wait before a lone pin- 
tail came along, and I had a fine shot at him. Shooting 
was good until dark. I bagged seventeen ducks and 
one brant. One of the other boys get sixteen ducks, 
and the others all had a respectable bag of ducks. 

W^e had another stormy day while on this trip, and 
these two days were my best, in fact the only days when 
we bagged very many ducks. We got geese almost 
every morning and evening until our return home. 

Ducks do not seem to decoy on the feeding grounds 



j6o duck shooting. 

here, but on some ponds of still water they decoy splen- 
didly, and good bags may be made on any decent day. 

After the geese had, in large measure, been driven 
away from the Platte, good shooting was had on the 
Arkansas River. The method of gunning on this 
stream was to choose an island as near the centre of 
the river as possible, where there was a good sand-bar 
for decoys, within thirty or forty yards of the island, 
and to dig a pit and shoot the geese as they came in to 
the decoys. Often the shooting was very good here, 
and frequently the bag was a mixed one, for ducks fre- 
quently came up within shot, lured by the goose decoys. 
In this shooting, bags of from 25 to 40 geese and 15 to 
20 ducks were often made. 



WITH LIVE DECOYS. 

Except in a few places in the East, goose shooting is 
hardly at all practiced, and to the gunner of the north- 
east coast a goose is the greatest of all feathered game. 
By accident a few are killed every year at various points 
on the New England coast, but at one or two places in 
Massachusetts, and from Maryland southward, many 
geese are killed annually. 

In these localities it is desirable and almost necessary, 
however, to use Jive goose decoys. These are set out 
within gun-shot of the blind, and their movements and 
vociferous calling lure down their wild relatives, which 



GOOSE SHOOTING. 261 

often alight among them, and begin to fight or to play 
with them. 

In the South the most common method is to have a 
water-tight box built on some shoal, or at the edge of 
some sandy beach, in a place where the geese are ac- 
customed to congregate. Such a box is commonly four 
feet deep, and is, of course, open at the top. Usually it 
is large enough for two men, who are provided with a 
seat, and with a shelf in front, on which they can place 
ammunition. A fringe of grass or bushes is tacked 
about the edge of the box, projecting only six or eight 
inches above it, through which the occupants can watch 
the geese as they draw near. 

On a good goosing day, long before it is light, the 
men go into the goose-pen and capture the live decoys, 
which are placed in coops, each one large enough to 
hold two or three birds. The coops are then trans- 
ported to the boat, if the journey to the box is to be 
made by water, or are put in the wagon, if the box is 
close to the shore. The goose stools, on which the 
tethered birds are to stand, are put in the boat; then 
the gunners, with their arms and ammunition, enter it, 
and the start is made for the box. If it should happen 
that the box has not been used for a long time, or if the 
previous day was stormy, with a high sea. the box may 
be found to be full of water, in which case it must, of 
course, be bailed out. The gunners, with their arms, 
ammunition and lunch, take their places in it, and the 
men go off to leeward to set out the decoys. Usually 
the water is so shoal that they can wade about in it 



262 DUCK SHOOTING. 

without going over the tops of their high rul)1)er boots. 
If it is deeper than this, the chances are against much 
shooting, for the wild geese are pretty well informed 
as to the depth of the water, and if it is too deep for 
them to feed they are not likely to alight. On the other 
hand, the water must be deep enough for them to swim 
easily. 

The number of decoys put out is usually not less than 
six, nor more than fifteen. Whatever the number, 
the geese are set out in the form of a V, the angle 
being toward the box. Each goose is provided with a 
stool, which consists of a sharp-pointed stake, four feet 
long, sharpened at the end, and topped with a round or 
oval piece of board, eight or ten inches across. When 
the sharp end of the stake is firmly implanted in the 
mud of the bottom, the board table should be two inches 
under water. Immediately below the tal)le there is 
fastened to the stake a slender leather strap, from three 
to four feet long, terminating in two branches, each of 
which has at its end a running noose, which is put 
around the goose's leg and drawn up snug, yet not too 
tight. As each stool is planted in the mud, the man 
who tends it goes to the boat, takes a goose from the 
coop, fastens it by botl^ legs to the strap, and throws it 
on the water. As soon as the bird has been put out it 
begins to bathe, and for a time is busily engaged in 
ducking, shaking itself and swimming about, so far as 
its strap v/ill permit. After it tires of this, it is likely 
to swim up to the table, climb on it and stand there 
preening itselL The best «aller among the decoys is 



GOOSE SHOOTING. ^263 

iisuall_v put at one end of one of the lines or off to one 
side, and the goose to which this gander is particularly- 
attached at the other end. After the decoys are tied 
out, the men go away and hide their boat, and then take 
a position on the shore, as near as possible to the blind, 
where they can watch everything that is done. 

If the weather is right for goosing, it is usually not 
long before a flock of the birds are seen coming. The 
decoys are likely to recognize them as soon as any one, 
and as soon as they see them they begin to call. If the 
decoys are properly set, the approaching geese will 
answer, and will usually lower their flight and prepare 
to alight with them. It is a common practice to allow 
them to do this, and then to fire one barrel at the birds 
on the water and another as they rise. If they swim up 
to the decoys in a long line, as they often do, the gun- 
ners, by aiming at their heads and necks, may often kill 
a large number on the water, and then, shooting with 
judgment, as the birds begin to rise, may get a number 
more. By this means, in favorable localities, more than 
a hundred geese are sometimes killed in a day, and not 
infrequently, with the geese, a number of swans may be 
taken, since the swans resort to the same feeding and 
roosting grounds that the geese occupy. 

There is little to be said in praise of the altogether 
common practice of allowing geese to alight and shoot- 
ing them on the water. It, of course, largely increases 
the count, which, in fact, is what many men shoot for, 
but there is certainly little satisfaction to be derived 
from killing with the shot-gun on the water a bird as 



264 DUCK SHOOTING. 

large as a goose, and the better sentiment of the best 
class of gunners will favor shooting at the geese as they 
are about to alight, and then giving them the other bar- 
rels as they go away. 

While much of the goose shooting on the South At- 
lantic coast is done from boxes planted on the shoals or 
the beach, it is sometimes done from sand-bars, locally 
called 'iumps," in which pits are dug and these sur- 
rounded with a fringe of bushes or sedge. Shooting 
from such a shelter with a stand of live decoys is de- 
scribed by Mr. E. J. Myers in Forest and Stream in the 
following words : 

Into the blind, because the skiff has already faded 
out of sight in the gray mist, and amid noisy splashing 
and washing one old gander is already stretching his 
long neck and straining the leather thong which ties 
him to the stake driven in the shallows out of sight. 
Out of the duskiness and gray shadows come muffled 
sounds as of tlie heavy wing strokes of the flying geese, 
that resolve into nothing as we settle ourselves down to 
patiently wait. Brighter grows the daylight from be- 
hind the sandy ridges dividing the ocean from the 
sound, and the great bars shooting to the zenith light 
the watery waste into vermilion and carminated blood, 
and, a glowing red ball of fire, up comes the sun. In- 
voluntarily made a sun worshiper, I rise; when Hay- 
man roughly pulls me down, and points with gun bar- 
rels directly at the sun just suspended over the rim of 
the horizon. Lo ! there, as if they were issuing from its 
glowing, incandescent mass, a V-shaped dotted line is 



GOOSE SHOOTING. 265 

spread across its face — the apex in its heart and the 
ends reaching- far out. "They are coming this way. 
How swiftly they fly ! Are they high or low ?" But the 
old gunner says not a word, as if miles away they could 
hear the hoarse whisper, and lets his hand weigh heavily 
on my shoulder for utter silence. On they come, nearer 
and nearer; but, oh! how high. No use, they are too 
high even for the lo-gauge ; but hear that old renegade 
decoy gander honk-honk as he tries to lure his wild 
brethren to their death — the only thing, I suppose, the 
white man taught him. From above the leader echoes 
honk-honk, and we are afraid to move; but they go on, 
and I stare at Hayman, who mutters, "Too high," and 
peers between the brush of the blind as time goes on. 

"See there!" But my eyes detect nothing across 
the stretch of waters. "Low down on the water, com- 
ing from the lighthouse." "Too much for my eyes," 
I am about to say, when I see the whirling forms just 
over the water, coming directly toward us. "Aye, they 
will light," as the whole twenty decoys begin to flutter 
and honk-honk, and then the heart stops beating and 
the breath bates as the geese alight and begin swim- 
ming toward the decoys. 

"Mark" — "fire" — three wild geese float on the water. 

Up and at them — the second barrels bark and another 
goose falls as the others wing away. 

. Out on the sand, Hayman takes some twigs and 
fixes the dead geese as if they were sitting on the sand 
— to me they look just as if they were alive, sitting 
upon the nest. 



266 DUCK SHOOTING. 

"Great Jupiter ! look at that, Hayman." For across 
the heavens, hne after Hne, reaching from the easterly 
horizon to its westerly rim, came successive flocks as 
we crouched low clown in the blind. Countless myriads 
moving onward, and then Hayman's hand fell heavily 
on my shoulder, backing, forcing me lower to the sandy 
floor. Far over our heads a flock was circling — sailing 
around and around, answering with noisy greetings 
the hoiik-Jwnk of the captive renegades luring them to 
their doom — noisy converse between the clouds and 
the sand. Lower and lower they come, and just as the}'' 
are about to light something frightens them, and then 
up rises Hayman ; and I, needing no prompting, let the 
iron dogs bark for two that came tumbling almost in the 
box. A third one tumbled on the water and began flut- 
tering away. Hayman sprang into the water and put 
two shots into it before he got the goose, nearly a quar- 
ter of a mile away. Away went the others, and then, 
"See, that one is badly hurt," said Hayman, as one bird 
seemed to be sinking slowly from the flock, flying away 
off in the distance. Lower, at first, three or four geese 
seemed to stick to the wounded one; but as he sank 
lower, the others went back to the flock, and the doomed 
one sank lower and lower, falling slowly to the sound, 
the life-blood ebbing away — badly, maybe fatally hurt, 
too far for us to get it. Deserted, abandoned and left 
to die. 

So we went oji until we had twelve before noon, 
and then the largest flock of the day settles about 600 
yards away on the shoals, the water barely high enough 



GOOSE SHOOTING. 267 

to reach their breasts. The decoys honked to them in 
vain, and then I rose them with the Winchester and got 
one straggler going low as they flew over our heads. 
More real enjoyment in that one feat than in anything 
that happened that day. 

So the hours waned and the day went by, and about 
4 o'clock the signal, four shots, brought Bobby with the 
coops to the lump to take us back. We were all out of 
the blind on the lump with half the decoys in the box 
when a flock came right at us. Hayman and I sprang 
down in the blind and grasped the guns, while Bobby 
crouched behind the coop and squeezed the old rene- 
gade decoy gander until he honked as never honked he 
before. I named him Simon Gerty, after the old white 
renegade on the Ohio, who in the dime novels figured 
with Daniel Boone. 

Heard one ever the yarn before, that the geese came 
and settled down among the decoys with coop and boy 
on the lump ? Bobby's shrill voice, wild with eager im- 
patience, "kill 'um," spoiled the intended slaughter, but 
we got two, making fifteen geese. 

Sport enough for the day, and wading across the 
water we got into the skiff and sailed back to the Brant. 
A bath and a smart rub down, and dinner all ready. 
And then, as the boys cleaned the guns and hung up 
the fowls, I stretched out on the deck, enjoying a dolce 
far niente, the priceless satiety of a sportsman who has 
had one fair day without mar or spoil. 

On certain large lakes in Massachusetts, which are 



268 DUCK SHOOTING. 

reg-ularly visited by the geese on their migrations, the 
practice of shooting over hve decoys has been carried 
to its highest perfection. Here are used not only hve 
decoys tethered in the water and on the beach, but birds 
are kept also on the shore behind the stand, which, on 
the a]:)pearance of a flock of wild geese, are tossed into 
the air, and fly down to the captive decoys in the water. 

On a little hill behind the stand a hian sits concealed 
in a blind ready to throw the fly-geese, which are taught 
to fly out, circle about and finally alight in the water. 
As each one of these birds is thrown, the tethered birds 
on the beach and in the pens set up a loud honking, and 
the combination of the calling and the flying birds 
usually brings the approaching flock to the water. They 
do not always alight near the decoys, but even if they 
are quite a distance from shore, the flying birds and 
those seen on the beach are likely to draw them in. 

A verv clear idea of the success which attends this 
mode of decoying at Silver Lake, where one stand of 
live decoys numbers about 200 birds, can be had from 
an account of it published some years ago in Forest and 
Stream, which reads substantially as follows : 

On the afternoon of November 15th, Charles and I 
went to the lake with our traps. On the way we met 
William, the crack shot, and were told by him that the 
boys had killed eighteen geese that morning. Our 
blood was up at once, for we had not forgotten the last 
hunt. 

After supper we stood in the sand, when from out 
of the sky came the faint, long honk of geese. There 



GOOSE SHOOTING. 269 

they are, and George stirs up the decoys. Old One 
Wing hears the call and straightens out for work. 
Soon the whole point is in one grand roar. The wild 
geese swing over us. and we can just make out the line 
of black rushing through tne air. They wheel out over 
the lake, honk a few times, and we hear them no more. 
In a little while, as we look up the lake, we see a flash, 
then three or four, and then come the reports of the 
puns. Men at a stand on the east side of the lake have 
sh:t, and now the air is full of geese. We try to stop 
some of them, but it is of no use; so this ends the fun 
for the present. 

It is now about 12 o'clock. Add, Tom, Herb and I 
are in the stand. George has turned in, having been up 
two nights. There is a light ripple on the water. The 
moon shines brightly, and we are saying that it is an 
ideal night for birds, when Herb says, "What is that 
just inside the blocks?" Tom looks with glasses, and 
says, "Ducks ; about fifteen." They come nearer and are 
almost near enough to shoot, when there comes, honk, 
honk, honk right over us. There are fourteen geese, 
with wings crooked, scaling to our decoys. Have you 
ever seen them? and didn't your blood tingle? Some- 
thing startles them, and they whirl to the north, going 
toward the place where the other shot was fired. 

As the boys had been up nearly all of two nights, I 
offered to stand watch to-night. As I stood there look- 
ing at the water, it came to me why this place was called 
Silver Lake. The moon shining on the water, which 
was stirred to a little ripple by the breeze, made it seem 



270 DUCK SHOOTING. 

like a lake of silver, and I thought it well named. The 
geese decoys had settled for the night, with only now 
and then the low grciwl of an old gander, which would 
be quickly answered by one of his goslings on the hill. 
The faint hoot of an owl comes to me from the eastern 
side of the lake, while from the southern end 1 hear 
the Cjuick quack-quack of some ducks which have just 
lit. Then the soft call of the decoys at the new stand 
comes to me from afar off and startles me from my 
dreams, causing me to stir up the decoys and almost 
sending me in to wake the boys before I knew what it 
was. As I get over my excitement and find that my 
heart is not in my mouth, I hear the boom of a volley of 
guns at Oldham Pond; then in a short time another, 
and right upon it three reports from the new stand. 1 
go into the air about a foot, and see Oliver, and Herb 
close at his heels, bareheaded and hair standing on end. 
"Great Scott! Have the British landed?" from Oliver, 
while Herb is saying: "What's the matter, Fred; are 
you trying to blow us up?" I explain matters, and as it 
is after 3 o'clock we decide to turn in and let the lake 
take care of itself. Nothing thus far. But our time is 
coming. 

In the morning about 8 o'clock George said : "I am 
looking for a large flock of geese to-day." He had 
gone to feed the decoys, when Gene said : "There are 
geese." We pressed the button, and in a minute all 
were in the stand. "There they are," said George. "I 
never saw so large a fiock before." As they came out 
over tlie lake the new stand let out their fivers ; then 



GOOSE SHOOTING. 2/1 

Gunner's Point let theirs go ; and when George and 
Herb pulled on them, the way those goslings went from 
the hill was a caution. The wild ones see the flyers 
and hang, then crook, and then scale toward the water. 
They head into the wind, then wheel and come in the 
wind, then settle in the lake, and there they are. "Four 
acres of them," says George. I shall never forget how 
those geese looked coming in. Talk about pictures, it 
was the prettiest one I ever saw. Such a large flock of 
wild ones, with about 300 decoys flying around the 
three stands, was enough to open any sportsman's eyes. 
The gunners at Gunner's Point break about a dozen 
from the bunch, but do not shoot at them ; the rest come 
toward us. George says : "They can't help it." We get 
fifty near enough to shoot ; then another flock of twenty 
came, and eight lit with our decoys. Charles and I were 
going to attend to these, but they swam away before 
George could get the rest as he wanted them. We 
rushed up beside Add and George, and as George said, 
"Get on to them," we rose up over the stand. 

Geese everywhere ; where shall I shoot ? I see four 
together, with some more in range. I hold on the four. 
"Are you ready? Fire!" What a roar from the guns, 
and also from the wild geese and decoys. Twenty- 
seven dead and wounded geese. We are not to shoot 
flying: but William, from force of habit, shoots, and 
says he knocked his goose, \\xll, the world was full of 
them, and some must have flown into it. They circle 
around the lake and alight everywhere. Ten come with 
our decovs. We "get on to them," and kill nine. In a 



lyz DUCK SHOOTING. 

few minutes six alight with the decoys at the north end. 
We g-o up tliere and kill them all. Now they shoot at 
the new stand, then at Gunner's Point, and about a 
hundred alight in the lake in front of us. We get out 
the boat and pick up the game, then hustle after the 
flyers. As we are driving them in we see one among 
them loi king rather wild. "Close in on them, boys. 
That is a wild one," says George. It proves as he says, 
and we had driven in a wild one. He will make a decoy 
another season. After we got the flyers in I hear Add 
say, "Here comes a single goose; nail him, Fred." I 
grab a gun, shoot twace, and the goose flew on. '•' * * 

After dinner we try for the flock which is in the 
lake in front of us. Tom sees a flock of seven coming. 
They alight with the others. After a time thirty-six 
start to come on. They get almost near enough to 
shoot, when they turn and swim away as fast as they 
can. What's the matter? We are no longer in doubt, 
for a man comes in to the stand, having walked around 
the shore. 

Soon we see another large flock coming, fully as 
large as tlie first. They come over, and we thrown on 
them ; it does the business, and they alight. I would 
like to know how many geese there are in the lake now. 
We drew about sixty, but could only get twenty-two to- 
gether. Thomas gave the word, George not being 
there. We killed twenty-one. George came into the 
stand just as we fired, and we had the laugh on him. 
By this time it-was dark. The geese were honking all 
over the lake. We drew on six. and killed them all. I 



GOOSE SHOOTING. 273 

would rather not say anything about the next shot, but 
perhaps it will be as well to give the bitter with the 
sweet. There must be some hitch, and here it was. 
Eleven geese near enough, all hands in the stand, and 
as George said "Get ready!" some one shot. We all 
fired at the break of the gun, but only got three. 
George was mad, and the way he talked left no doubt 
in any mind what his opinion was of the man who 
shot. * * * 

We find that we have made a record for the stand, 
sixty-eight geese in twelve hours being the most ever 
killed in the same time at any stand at the lake. 

In Great South Bay, Long Island, and in Shinnecock 
Bay there are still a few stands of live wild geese, and 
some birds are shot there every year. As a rule, the 
shooting is done from boxes sunk in the points of the 
marsh or in bars, and twenty-five or thirty geese are tied 
out as decoys. The old gander, or honker, is usually 
put quite a distance off to one side. 

Under some conditions the geese come down to the 
decoys here as in other places along the Atlantic coast, 
but sometimes it happens that old and suspicious birds 
will take the bunch down to the water far out of gun- 
shot. When this happens, it is the part of the tender, 
who is well off-shore in his catboat, to "swim" these 
geese up to the decoys. He must work backward and 
forward near enough to them to urge them toward the 
boxes, and yet not so close as to cause them actual alarm 
or, indeed, suspicion. As in most other places where 



274 DUCK SHOOTING. 

geese are shot, the attempt is usually made to shoot the 
first barrel at the birds on the water and the second at 
them as they rise. The "swimming" of geese requires 
great judgment and perseverance and a good knowl- 
edge of the points and bars of the bay. Often it takes 
hours of careful work to get the geese up co the right 
place, yet very often it is successfully done, and the de- 
sired shot is had. 



DRIVING. 

During the winter, geese frequent many of the wider 
rivers running into the Chesapeake Bay and into the 
brackish water sounds on the coasts of Virginia and 
North and South Carolina. Here they are often shot 
by a method of driving which is graphically described 
ii; an account written by Mr. L. J. Picot, who has prac- 
ticed it, and published in Forest and Stream. It is as 
follows : 

That part of the Roanoke River which flows through 
Warren County, and between the upper portions of 
Halifax and Northampton counties, North Carolina, 
has long been a favorite feeding place for the wild 
geese. As soon as the first biting frosts come in 
October great flocks of geese take up their winter abode 
in these waters. Huge boulders or rocks in midstream 
furnish them roosting places at night, without fear of 
danger of in\ asion from man or beast. These rocks are 
always situated between swift-running, though shal- 



GOOSE SHOOTING. 275 

low, water, rendering their approach by night ahiiost 
impossible. The river is a succession of falls for several 
miles. In the clefts of the rock, hollowed out by long 
friction, lodge quantities of various berries, acorns and 
rich nuts, floated from up-stream. There, too, is the 
tender watercress abundant. This — the berries and 
nuts — is the food of the wild goose. The river is a 
cjuarter of a mile wide, unnavigable save for a light 
flat-bottomed canoe, such as is generally used by fisher- 
men and sportsmen in small streams. There is nothing 
to disturb the serenity of the geese save the gun of the 
sportsman. They are so little hunted that they disport 
themselves in the gurgling waters or sit on the rocks, 
not heeding persons or vehicles passing along the road 
on the river's bank. Often they present an easy mark 
for rifle-shot, which is almost sure to bring down one 
or more, as they are huddled so close to each other. 
One sturdy old gander stands sentry to the main flock. 
With vigilant eyes, one foot updrawn in his feathers, 
he gives notice of approaching danger by a loud Jionk- 
hoiik. They take his advice promptly and leave for 
another feeding place, generally in the falls, higher up 
or lower down stream, depending entirely on the direc- 
tion from which the danger comes. One great comfort 
to the hunter is that their flights are very rarely over a 
mile at the longest, and he can soon have another pop 
at them. 

The romance of rising in the weird and misty light 
of the morning, without any breakfast or hot punch, and 
sneaking to the river's bank, is entirely left out in our 



276 DUCK SHOOTING. 

plan of goose hunting on the Roanoke River. There 
is no crawHng- through mud and briers for a half mile. 
The geese wait for you to get your breakfast, and din- 
ner, too, if you want it, before you pay them your re- 
spects in the manner which I shall presently describe. 
You just ride along on the bank of the river as you 
might if you intended going to church or a funeral on 
a quiet Sunday morning in the country. You try to 
strike the stream at the lowest part, where the geese 
frequent, and follow up the water's edge until the geese 
are sighted, and at some points you can see them for a 
mile or more. It is always necessary to have two men, 
and it is better to have a party of three to make a suc- 
cessful hunt. More than this number overloads a boat, 
and lends a clieerful prospect of a good ducking in the 
rapids by standing on a smooth, half-sunken rock. 

We take a boat, usually kept just above or below 
where we expect to find the geese, and paddle to one of 
the hundreds of small islands in the river, from six feet 
in circumference to several acres. We select a small 
island, dry and full of driftwood, debris of bridges 
swept away in freshets, and soft grass.. We select a 
small island, because the birds, wary, of the^ shore, will 
not approach so close to a large one as to a small one. 
Here we are perfectly secreted by bushes and driftwood, 
not at all cramped in posture, while waiting for a shot. 
The dry grass or a log gives choice of a seat. The man 
in the boat, who is to be the driver, then scuds along 
the bank furthest from the grass, so as not to alarm 
and put them to flight. As soon as he passes them 



GOOSE SHOOTING. 277 

sufficiently far to make them believe he has gone on 
some other business up the river, he heads his boat di- 
rectly for them, just drifting with the stream, and often 
whistling a merry tune so as to attract their attention 
without doing so too suddenly. The geese watch the 
bearing of the boat, and when it floats toward them 
they swim away from it. The man in the boat is an 
old hand and knows full well when he can push away. 
If they show signs of restlessness he paddles away, 
pretending not to notice them. The object, as seen at 
once, is to start and keep them swimming with the cur- 
rent. Once set them fairly to moving, and here comes 
a solid quarter of an acre of geese swimming gracefully 
with the undulations of the water right down to the 
muzzles of our guns. 

How we tremble with excitement and impatience ! 
You whisper through chattering teeth to your neighbor 
to keep quiet till you shall say "Fire." The distance on 
the water deceives an inexperienced eye, and your 
neighbor wants to shoot, but you beg him to hold on yet, 
and wait until they are within thirty or forty yards. 
One gives the word to fire to the right and the other to 
the left ; two barrels in the water and two shots as they 
rise ; and such flapping and beating the water was rarely 
ever seen before. You rush, delighted, from your hid- 
ing place to yell to the man in the boat to gather the 
dead and wounded birds, and there may be anywhere 
from four to a dozen. If there are some only wing- 
tipped, here is fun indeed, for a goose uses his feet for 
all they are worth, and, aided by the rapid current, 



278 DUCK SHOOTING. 

makes good time in search of a hiding place in the 
rushes of an adjoining island. An extra boat now 
comes in well. A dog is nowhere. Once carried past 
the island, he cannot swim against the current. 

The so-called white brant, which for many years 
have spent the winter or a part of it on Delaware Bay, 
are very wary, and are shot with difficulty or by acci- 
dent. The most successful way of obtaining them, 
however, is to paddle up to them among the ice. 

When the ice is breaking up in the spring the gunners 
get into a boat on which ice is piled, the men themselves 
wearing white clothing, or being covered with sheets 
and keeping as much as possible out of sight. The man 
in the stern manages the oar which propels and directs 
the boat, which is sometimes thus sculled right in 
among the flock. 

In the Sacramento Valley, in California, the wild 
geese, on their southern migrations, arrive early and 
stay late. One of the first localities to be visited by the 
geese in that neighborhood is Fisherman's Lake, which 
lies only eight miles north of Sacramento. Although 
occasional small bunches reach the Sacramento Valley 
in the very last days of August, most of them do not 
come until about the middle of September. Usually, 
however, by September 12th or 15th, large numbers 
have arrived, and a record kept from 1876 to 1887 
shows the earliest arrival noted to have been August 
14th, while in 1880 the earliest birds did not come until 
September 17th. 



BRANT SHOOTING. 

FROM A BATTERY. 

Brant are shot from batteries in very considerable 
numbers, and this mode of securing them does not 
greatly differ from ordinary duck shooting from a 
battery. There are two principal methods practiced 
in various places, which means only that for each the 
battery is set out in a different situation. The com- 
moner method is called shooting on the tide. The battery 
is rigged in the usual way on the feeding grounds of 
the brant, in shoal water under the beach. For a 
single battery eighty decoys would be used, while for 
a double battery the number might be increased to a 
hundred. The decoys are disposed much as in shooting 
ducks from the battery, as shown in the diagram in 
the account of that sport. 

Usually, the battery is rigged out near high water. 
As the tide begins to fall, the brant leave their off-shore 
grounds and strike in to the beach, in order to be there 
when the water has become shoal enough for them to 
feed on the grass growing on the bottom. Sometimes 
they come in small numbers, in pairs or in bunches of 
half a dozen to fifteen, and then offer very pretty 
shooting. At other times they may come in great 
bunches of several hundred or a thousand, and puzzle 
the gunner, who knows that if he shoots at this big 

279 



2So DUCK SHOOTING. 

bunch none of them will come back, and he yet fears 
that he may not get another shot so good. 

The other method of shooting them is to rig out 
the battery on the off-shore flats, near the deep-water 
channels. To such places the birds resort to sit and 
rest, when the tide is rising and they can no longer 
feed. At such times the gunner's tender with the sail- 
boat will work back and forth to leeward of the birds, 
approaching just near enough to disturb them, but not 
to frighten them, and trying to make them take wing 
and fly on a little way, so as to go down with the next 
bunch of birds. In this way a skillful boatman will 
drive the different flocks two or three hundred yards, 
not furtlier, pushing them along by easy stages until 
some of them go dow^n to the decoys about the battery. 
The work is difficult and slow, and requires great 
judgment and experience, and it is by no means always 
possible to h.andle the birds as one wishes to. 

Usually the southern brant begin to work up north 
in February, and reach the coast of Virginia, north of 
the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, late in February. 
The birds that have wintered on the Virginia coast 
are by this time moving north, and reach the Great 
South Bay in small numbers early in March, though 
they do not become abundant until about the 20th. 
By the 15th of April most of the brant have left the 
Great South Bay, and by the 20th or 25th of April they 
take their final departure from the Massachusetts coast, 
where they are-hot seen again until October. Their 
movements depend greatly on the wind. Sometimes 



BRANT SHOOTING. 



28 r 




282 DUCK SHOOTING. 

they collect in surprising numbers in favorite localities, 
seemingly waiting for favorable weather conditions. If 
the spring is stormy and cold, with gales from the 
north, northwest and northeast, the brant remain here, 
growing more and more numerous ; but should a south- 
west wind begin to blow, the birds may all disappear 
in a night. Sometimes they linger in the Great South 
Bay until the first days of May, but they cannot be de- 
pended on to remain so late. 

Brant were formerly very unsuspicious, and came 
with great readiness to the decoys set out about the 
battery ; but of late years, since they have been so per- 
sistently gunned, they, like other birds and mammals, 
are learning the lesson of experience, and often do not 
decoy readily, and sometimes not at all. 

In some places in various Atlantic coast waters, the 
tides and the currents sweep together masses of grass 
and seaweed in particular places, which are called sea- 
weed banks or bunks. These are often piled up so 
that the surface of the heap is within a few inches of 
the top of the water. Where such bunks are formed 
near the feeding grounds of the brant it is often pos- 
sible to rig out a battery, and to lie there and shoot 
them in very tempestuous weather ; at times, in fact, 
when a battery could not live in deeper water. At 
such times the brant are uneasy, flying about and seek- 
ing shelter, and come to decoys more readily than 
at other times. The gunner who is fortunate enough 
to find such a place, and to get rigged out there, is 
likely to have exceedingly good shooting. 



BRANT SHOOTING. 28 



J 



Mr. C. R. Purely, whose long experience as a brant 
shooter entitles him to speak with all authority, has 
kindly contributed the following notes on brant shoot- 
ing in the Great South Bay : 

"Brant shooting in the Great South Bay is entirely 
confined to the spring months. Although a few flocks 
pass through in their southern migration, they never 
stop in the bay in any numbers. In the spring, how- 
ever, they select these waters as a resting place on their 
return to their northern breeding ground. A few scat- 
tering flocks drop in the bay about the middle of 
March, and from that time on, the flight improves each 
day until about the first week in April, when it is at its 
height and the fowl are in the bay in great numbers. 

"If we could have in the fall the same number of 
brant that we have in the spring they would furnish 
magnificent shooting, but, arriving as they do in the 
spring months after being shot at all winter in south- 
ern waters, they seem to be familiar with all the devices 
used by man for their capture, and it is only by hard 
work and under extremely favorable circumstances 
that even a fair bag can be made. My average, as I 
find on looking over the score book, is from thirty to 
thirty-five birds a week, and my best day in fifteen 
years was forty-seven brant. 

"Brant prefer to feed on the shoals immediately 
under the beach, and as they cannot dive for their food 
they wait until the ebb tide is partly down, when they 
can readily reach the young marine grasses by dipping. 
It is in such places that the gunner rigs out his shooting 



284 DUCK SHOOTING. 

outfit, which usually consists of a single battery with 
from seventy-five to eighty brant decoys, or a 
double battery with ninety to one hundred. Some 
gunners do not use so many brant decoys, and fill out 
with duck decoys. 

"When the flight of brant starts for the beach the 
birds will continue to fly during the greater part of the 
ebb, or until all those that have been living on that 
shoal have come in, but they have a bad habit, ac- 
quired in the South, of rising high in the air to see what 
lies beyond the decoys they are approaching, and in this 
way they are very likely to discover the poor wretch 
in the box, who, in his efforts to get lower down out of 
sight, is trying to shove himself through the bottom of 
the battery. 

"Young birds, which can be recognized by the scat- 
tering white spots under the wings, are not so sus- 
picious and decoy much better. When a flock does 
come in well, an experienced gunner will usually wair 
until the birds lap — as is their habit — and as many as 
eleven have been killed by two barrels. 

"The old eel-grass on the shoals will often collect un- 
til it forms almost a small island with the top just below 
the surface of the water. These are called by the gun- 
ners seaweed bunks, and vary in size, some being only 
large enough to protect the battery, and make a lee for 
it, while others are fifty or sixty feet across. When a 
bunk makes up on a good brant shoal, the gunner who 
rigs out under it may remain in his battery, even if it 
should come on to blow heavily, when a battery could 



BRANT SHOOTING. ' 285 

not live on an open flat. In the heavy wind the brant 
do not rise high as they do in light weather, but hug 
the water and decoy readily. 

"Often brant will be found in scattered bunches 
along the edges of off-shore flats — called middle 
grounds by the gunners — and in the channels. There 
they swim about, picking up driftweed, often taking 
to wing and flying short distances and again alighting 
as soon as they get sight of a tempting lot of grass. 
At such times good shooting may be had by rigging 
out as near as possible to the place where the birds are, 
and by carefully sailing boat to leeward of the brant, 
when they can gradually be worked up to the decoys. 

"Brant are sometimes held in the bay by thousands 
when the wind is unfavorable to their northern flight, 
and if the wind changes suddenly and blows from the 
southward, they will leave in a body and usually on 
the flood tide. Many a time I have sat on the side of 
the box and watched the procession go by, flock after 
flock, cackling and talking. Decoys are then useless, 
as they pay no attention to them. Now and then a 
flock will stop in their onward flight to fly around in 
a circle — to see if their steering gear is all right, as 
the gunners explain it. When they reach the east end 
of the bay, the birds mount high in air and are gone for 
another year." 

The following spirited account of brant shooting 
from a battery behind a seaweed bunk was also kindly 
written for me by Mr. Purdy : 



286 DUCK SHOOTING. 

"It's no use talking," said the captain, "these old 
brant are getting too well educated for us." His re- 
marks were drawn out by a bunch of 500 or 600 brant 
that we had discovered, living at Flat Beach, and for 
which we had rigged with the result of killing only- 
seven. Although bunch after bunch had headed for 
the decoys, they had a bad habit of rising in the air 
when about two gunshots from the rig, to see whether 
there was anything dangerous beyond the nice-looking 
lot of decoys we had out. 

"If there had only been more young birds, I think 
they would have done better," the captain continued. 
"I don't know what we had better do next. I suppose 
we might as well go east, as far as Old House Flat, 
and look around." 

So we got sail on the sloop and stood east. We had 
been working with the brant since the 20th of March, 
and it was now the 3d of April, but as yet the big 
flight of birds had not come on. We had been picking 
them up, some days three, and others seven or eight, 
and the season's score looked as if it would be slim. 
But still we had a good comfortable thirty-foot sloop, 
with a large cabin and plenty of good things to eat, and 
we could afford to wait and see. 

We reached Old House Flat about dark and an- 
cliored close under the beach. 

"I don't like the looks of the weather," the captain 
remarked, as we were tying up the sails. "I am afraid 
we are in for an easter." After supper we went on 
deck to take a last look at the weather, and things did 



BRANT SHOOTING. 287 

not look promising for the next few days' shooting-. 
The wind had puhed in to the northeast, and a heavy 
scud was driving across the moon. So, paying out 
more chain, we turned in, to be lulled to sleep by rat- 
tling blocks and the dull boom of the surf on the 
beach. 

The alarm clock got us out at 4 o'clock next morn- 
ing, and after breakfast we went on deck to look about. 
It was still dark, and the wind was northeast, blowing 
hard, almost a gale. This meant too much sea on the 
flats for a battery. I resigned myself to a day of read- 
ing in my bunk. But by seven o'clock the ebb tide 
began to make and the captain announced his inten- 
tion of taking the sharpie, and going ashore to collect 
driftwood for the stove. He had been gone about a 
half hour, and I was dozing over my book, when I 
heard the scraping of the sharpie alongside, followed 
a minute later by the captain's head being thrust in the 
cabin door. 

"The quicker we get a move on us the better," he 
said. "There is a good seaweed bunk in shore to the 
east of us, and any quantity of brant are going in to 
the beach.'' 

That was enough for me. I was out of the bunk in 
a minute and on deck with the glasses. I could make 
out one hundred brant or more on the flat, about a 
quarter of a mile to the east of us, and several bunches 
were swinging around to the windward of the sloop 
and heading in shore. We wasted no time. The stops 
were thrown off the head fender of the batterv, and 



288 DUCK SHOOTING. 

tlie sloop's stern shoved around with a pole, until she 
lay broadside to the sea, when the centreboard was 
dropped, to hold her there. This made a lee for the 
battery, and it was launched over the side. It was so 
rough that the battery could not carry the iron duck 
decoys when clear of the boat. So seven of them 
weighing twenty-five pounds each were lowered into 
the stool boat, followed by my eight and ten gauge 
guns in rubber covers, with two rubber bags contain- 
ing shells for the guns. Then I threw in the old 
gunning coat for a pillow, and the rubber blanket 
for the bottom of the box, and taking the battery 
in tow of the stool boat, using the anchor rope of 
the head fender for a tow line, we succeeded after 
twenty minutes' hard poling in reaching the seaweed 
bunk. 

A seaweed bunk is nothing more than a large mass 
of seaweed, worked together by the tides until it forms 
almost an island which may vary from ten to fifty feet 
across, with the top a few inches below the surface. 
Our bunk we found a good one, thirty or more feet 
wide and forming a splendid shelter for the battery. It 
was the work of only a few minutes to throw the head 
fender anchor under the lee of the bunk, straighten 
the battery down wind, and drop the tail stone. Guns 
and traps were put in the box and the decoys thrown 
out. We were using eighty brant with a single bat- 
tery, seven or eight decoys were dropped across to 
windward of the head fender, and a double line down 
each side of the battery, close enough together to 



BRANT SHOOTING. 289 

break its outline. The rest were scattered between a 
point fifteen 3^ards distant on the left hand of the bat- 
tery and forty yards to the leeward. 

Leaving me in the box, the captain started back to 
the sloop to exchange the stool boat for the sharpie, 
as he would have to tend the battery from the shore; 
the shoal water and the direction Of the wind prevent- 
ing the use of the sloop. After getting the sharpie 
he rowed over to tell me that he was going to put up 
the brant that we had seen going in to the east. 

At last then I was alone, with only the wooden de- 
coys bobbing and moving around me. I dropped down 
the side fender and walked around to wet down the 
battery deck. The old gunning coat was doubled up on 
the head board, the rubber blanket spread on the bot- 
tom of the box, covers taken from the guns, which were 
loaded with No. 2 and BB shot for the eight-gauge, 
and No. 4 and No. 2 for the ten, and with the ten-gauge 
on my right hand and the eight on my left, the muzzles 
sticking over the foot of the box, and with the shell 
bags between my feet, I lay down to wait for something 
to happen. 

I wondered if the captain had started the birds yet, 
and I rolled partly over and looked back. No ; he had 
not gone far enough up to get on the other side of them 
yet. So I dropped back and began to follow the course 
of a three-masted schooner which was going west, out- 
side the beach, under lower sails. Suddenly the air 
back of me was filled with the sound of tearing muslin. 
I caught up the ten-gauge and twisted around to take 



290 DUCK SHOOTING. 

2l part in the disturbance. A bunch of sliell ckick had 
cut down to the decoys back of me and were gone 
before I could get around to them. The next minute 
I was just as well pleased that I had not shot, for the 
captain had started the brant, and they were coming- 
down the shore. There seemed a very large squad of 
them ; too bad they could not come in smaller bunches 
at different times ! I hugged the bottom of the box 
close, and began to toss up in my mind wdiether to try 
the eight-gauge first or the ten, or had I better let 
them alight, or would it be better to have them bunch 
in the air. I was considering these things, when, to 
my horror, I saw the whole flock going past me to the 
leeward, and not noticing the decoys. That would 
not do. So ofif came my old black soft hat, and flirting 
it with a quick motion along the edge of the box, I 
called brant talk as loud as I could. How quickly they 
noticed it ! The head part of the bunch lifted in the 
air and caught sight of the stool. ^ 

In an instant everything was changed. The head 
birds had turned for the decoys, and the rear birds 
were mounting the air to see where they were going, 
and, finding out, fell in behind. They w^ere all talking 
at once and were hugging the w^ater where the heavy 
wind was least felt. "They will come in like chick- 
ens," I thought, "and if I work those two guns all 
right we will have something to look at to-night." 
Along they came, a regiment of them, beating slowly 
against the wind. How big they looked ! Soon the 
half-dozen birds in advance reached the decovs and 



BRANT SHOOTING. 29I 

dropped in, and the others were over the tail part of 
the decoys, when something alarmed them. It was 
useless to stay down out of sight any longer, and I 
seized the eight-gauge and aimed at a thick bunch of 
birds to left hand. How they tumbled out ! Those No. 
2 shot did great work ; five shut up dead, and more 
were coming, dropping until four more had fallen, 
making nine, and another looked as if he were badly 
hurt. T watched him to see whether he would drop 
out further to the windward. 

The captain came rowing down like a steamboat, to 
gather in the birds. He shot over the cripples and we 
owned our nine brant. I stood up in the box to receive 
the captain's congratulations and was staggered by his 
question: "What was the matter; weren't they near 
enough ?" 

"Near enough! Of course. Didn't you pick up 
nine?" 

"Well, then, you must have had buck fever. Two 
guns in the battery and only fired one shot at a crowd 
of brant like that ! You're a great one for an old duck 
shooter!" 

But no matter, we had no time to indulge in re- 
grets, we felt that we must take advantage of the ebb 
and get what birds we could. The captain had just 
gotten nicely out of the way, when seven brant came 
in from off shore, and four stopped in the lower part 
of the decoys. 

Picking up my ten-gauge, I scored a clean miss on 
the three flying birds with the first barrel, but managed 



292 DUCK SHOOTING. 

to kill two with the second, and, catching up the eight- 
gauge, I stopped two others as they started out of the 
decoys. 

After a look around and seeing nothing on tlie wing, 
I sat on the edge of the box for a while, when a low 
k-r-r-r-k from the lower part of the decoys caused me 
to look quietly that way. A single brant was swim- 
ming through the rig. It is strange how sometimes 
they will come up and alight when you are sitting up, 
and at other times you cannot get them near decoys 
when you are hidden well. I made sure of gathering 
in our solitary friend, for I wanted to get out of the 
thirteen hole. 

Soon another flock came in sight, off shore, and I 
got down in the box to watch them. I wished they 
would not get around so far back of me, for this 
turning one's self into a corkscrew by trying to peek 
backwards in a battery is not agreeable. They did not 
show up on the other side of the box for some time, but 
at last I saw them up to the windward. They had 
dropped in, and were going to swim in to the beach. 
There was nothing to do but to lie close. Five minutes 
passed and an old black duck came over the box and 
looked down in my face. I imagined I could detect 
a leer in his cunning old eyes, as if he knew I would not 
shoot at him with those brant coming down. It 
seemed to me as if by this time the brant must have 
drifted down before the heavy wind. I rolled over a 
little and looked' and saw one swimming down just 
outside the decoys, and the rest were almost at the head 



BRANT SHOOTING. 293 

fender. I decided to let that single fellow get down 
a little further and to take the eight-gauge and swing 
around on the other chaps, and take the single one in 
as he started up. When he was far enough down, I 
swung around with the eight-gauge and took a care- 
ful aim at the waterline of the nearest bird of three 
sitting together, but they jumped as I pulled and I 
scored a blank, the second barrel stopping one bird. 
Now for the single one ! He didn't lead up according 
to programme, but climbed down wind and was now 
a long shot off. I sent both barrels on the ten-gauge 
after him. The first hit him hard, but it looked as if 
he would carry it off ; but no, he set his wings and scaled 
in toward the sharpie, and then let himself down gently 
— a cripple. A puff of smoke rose from the sharpie and 
a moment later his brantship was tossed rudely on to 
the stern seat. 

The captain shoved slowly toward the battery, pick- 
ing up the dead, and was soon within talking distance. 

"We will have rain soon ; it is getting thick off there 
to the east," was his first remark. "You didn't do 
much with that last bunch," was his second. But 
just then a boat going in to the beach to the west of us 
put up a big cloud of brant and the captain started 
back for the shore. I stood on the deck to look around 
while he was rowing away, and off shore of me to the 
east and west I could see the white tails of brant, 
bobbing up and down on the waves. Our easter was 
doing big work and the brant were stopping in the 
bay, tired out by facing its force. 



204 DUCK SHOOTING. 

More birds were cominj^ now and the shooting went 
on briskly as they came up, flock after flock. I made 
some rank misses that I feh I could explain to myself; 
but I knew that it would be pretty hard to do so to that 
dark object sitting in the sharpie on shore, with a 
powerful pair of field glasses glued to his eyes. 

Forty-seven brant lay in the bottom of the boat when 
down came the rain in torrents. We tried to stand it 
long enough to bring the score to fifty, but the shower 
bath on my upturned face was too much for me, and 
we reluctantly gave it up and rowed back to the sloop. 
Those forty-seven noble birds were stowed away, the 
rig picked up, rubber boots and wet clothing taken off, 
and with dry clothes, feet in old comfortable slippers, 
a stifif hot Scotch to take the chill out of the bones, 
we loaded our pipes and proceeded to talk it all over. 

"Well, what do you think of to-day, Cap?" 

"I would like to have made it fifty," he replied, "but 
if we do half as well to-morrow I will be satisfied." 

We came near it, but that is another piece of history. 
The day behind the bunk had always remained my big 
day at brant, and, with the great increase of batteries 
and the brant growing wilder each year, I know only 
too well it will never be duplicated, at least in the 
Great South Bay. 

BAR SHOOTING. 

At one or two .points only, along the Atlantic coast, 
is brant shooting practiced from boxes on sand-bars 



BRANT SHOOTING. 295 

with live decoys. For many years, however, this has 
been the only successful method of securing these birds 
at Cape Cod, where three clubs, known as the Mono- 
moy, Providence and Manchester, have long existed, 
and have occupied the branting ground on terms of en- 
tire harmony. 

For more than forty years, Mr. Warren Hapgood 
was a prominent member of the Monomoy Club and 
an enthusiastic brant shooter, and many years ago he 
contributed to the columns of Forest and Stream an 
extended and admirable account of this shooting, which 
is in part given below. It will be observed that in its 
essentials bar shooting for brant does not very mark- 
edly dififer from goose shooting from boxes, but the 
conditions which prevail at Cape Cod are so very dif- 
ferent from those existing where geese are shot, arKi 
the brant themselves have so many peculiarities not 
shared by the geese, that brant shooting, as practiced 
here, requires a description by itself. In the article 
above referred to Mr. Hapgood says : 

Brant shooting is a peculiar kind of sport that but 
few have indulged in. There are many obstacles in the 
way. The haunts of the birds are few and isolated, 
their feeding grounds limited, their sojourn brief ; nor 
can any degree of success be achieved without the 
proper appliances, such as a house to live in, boats, 
boxes, bars, live decoys and a skillful hand to manipu- 
late them. When, however, all these are obtained, no 
spring shooting on the coast of New England gives 



296 DUCK SHOOTING. 

greater satisfaction, or better rewards the energy and 
skill of the sportsman. The birds are large, weighing 
three and a half pounds, numerous, and, gastronomi- 
cally, have no superiors. They are not distributed uni- 
versally along the Atlantic shores, as are Canada geese, 
black duck, coot and other aquatic birds. At the east- 
erly end of Massachusetts is the nice, old-fashioned 
town of Chatham, and scMiie three miles away to the 
southward of this is the island of Monomoy, a mere 
belt of sand running still further southward six miles. 

Facing eastward from Monomoy, one sees the broad 
Atlantic, where "they on the trading flood ply, stem- 
ming nightly toward the pole." It is no uncommon oc- 
currence for a fleet of a hundred sail to be seen at an- 
chor or struggling against wind or tide to reach a port, 
and many a gallant ship has been wrested from her 
course by the storm king and tossed upon the beach as 
a mere toy. After an easterly gale, one of the objects 
of intense interest to tourists is the matchless grandeur 
of the spectacle of "hills of sea, Olympus high" that 
dash themselves in thunder upon this sand-bar, again 
and again to be absorbed in the bosom of the refluent 
wave. On the westerly side of the island, stretching up 
and down some miles, is what i^ called "Chatham Great 
Flats," over which the water flows, varying from two 
feet to almost nothing, according as it is full or neap 
tide. 

Adjoining these flats, on the southerly or westerly 
side, is deep, bkie water, where grows an immense 
quantity of common eel grass (Zosfcra marina), upon 



BRANT SHOOTING. 297 

which the brant feed ; and this is the great feeding 
grounds for these birds on Cape Cod. So attractive is 
this locahty that thousands of these Httle geese as- 
semble here every spring to ''feed and batten," prepara- 
tory to the long journey, via Prince Edward's Island, 
to their breeding grounds at or near the North Pole. 
It will be understood that the marine vegetable that 
proves so savory a morsel to the brant grows in water 
five or six feet deep at high tide, and, as these birds are 
not divers, they can only feed at low or nearly low tide. 
Then, as the flood tide drives them from their feeding 
grounds, particularly when it is breezy, the birds be- 
come uneasy and scatter about in little "pods" or flocks, 
evidently seeking other feeding grounds or more com- 
fortable quarters, where they can rest till the tide ebbs 
so they can return to the feast. It is during this period 
— from about half flood to half ebb tide — that the brant 
are flitting about over the flats and likely to catch sight 
of and be lured to the decoys ; and it is during these 
four or five hours each day that the shooting is done. 

The time for the brant to arrive from the South in 
spring varies considerably. A warm, forward spring 
brings along the brant in considerable numbers by the 
1st of March; whereas, a backward season will hardly 
make good shooting before the end of the month, and 
by the 25th of April so few remain as to offer the 
sportsman no inducement to pursue them further, 
though it is quite probable a few straggling flocks may 
be seen as late as the ist or even the loth of May. Dur- 
ing this period they are constantly coming and going. 



298- DUCK SHOOTING. 

especially when the wind is to the southward and west- 
ward. It will be readily observed that the shooting 
season at best only extends over a period of four or five 
weeks. They rarely stop at this place in autumn on 
their way south, and, if they do, are not fat or fit for 
table use. The birds, on arriving in the spring, enter 
the bay from the west in flocks or gaggles — varying 
from a few individuals up to several hundred — at no 
great distance from the mainland, sometimes passing 
directly over, not deigning to stop, even though their 
food is abundantly spread out before them and thou- 
sands of their less suspicious brethren are feeding there, 
while other flocks will gradually lower themselves 
down, swing around once or twice, then plunge into the 
liquid element. All the migratory birds that follow the 
coast line must of necessity pass this point both spring 
and fall. Sometimes they lift and go over Nanset Bar or 
Monomoy Island, and sometimes they pass around the 
southerly end of the island, Cape Malabar, but the great 
mass rise to a safe altitude, strike a "bee line" east by 
north, and pass directly over this strip of land. We 
have often remarked that the leader of each flock must 
have a pocket compass placed in the top of his head, so 
unerringly do they steer. 

One would naturally suppose, on seeing these birds 
constantly feeding at any locality along the shore, it 
would be easy enough to kill them. There are many 
such places up and down our coast, but for reasons very 
few birds can be Icilled. At the mouth of Bass River, 
many brant linger and feed through the entire season, 



BRANT SHOOTING. 299 

but there are no "flats," no points where boxes can be 
planted and successfully worked ; the water is too deep, 
the shore too bluff, and the brant feed only at low tide. 
A box might be placed on the feeding ground, and 
operated for a short time during each low tide, but the 
depth of water in the immediate vicinity would prevent 
the recovery of cripples, an important item in brant 
shooting ; and, moreover, all our experience teaches us 
that shooting at these birds on their feeding ground 
soon drives them to other quarters, from which they 
would never return. The same conclusion was arrived 
at on examining the harbor of Nantucket. It will be 
found, even at Chatham, that before any shooting can 
be done, a vast amount of hard work is to be performed. 
The feeding grounds and flats are so far from the town 
that living there is not practicable, and a shanty or 
house must be built on the island. Boxes are to be 
made, pens constructed for holding the live decoys, and 
a well dug for fresh water. This "well" arrangement 
is a curiosity to the uninitiated. The island, where the 
shanty is located, is not over two hundred yards wide, 
but of undulating surface, i. e.,. composed of little hill- 
ocks and valleys or basins. If a hole three feet deep be 
dug in one of these basins, and a common flour barrel 
inserted, it will, on the flood tide, partially fill with 
pure, soft water, and will continue to rise and fall with 
each tide. The reason of this is that rain falls upon 
this porous sand and percolates till it reaches salt water, 
which, being of greater specific gravity, holds or buoys 
up the fresh water. 



300 DUCK SHOOTING. 

The planting of the boxes is a job no one man can 
perform. A water-tight box, large enough to accom- 
modate three persons, must be about six feet long, 
three and a half wide, and two and a half deep. One 
half of this is buried in the flats ; the other is hidden by 
sand being wheeled and piled up around it. Nor is 
this all — a bar twenty or thirty yards long and two feet 
high must be made and maintained, for the decoys to 
run on and for the wild ones to assemble upon. The 
sand must be taken at low tide from some little dis- 
tance, so as to leave the flats and bar moderately smooth 
and natural. 

There is an enormous tendency in this Cape Cod 
sand to seek a dead level. Three hundred wheelbarrow 
loads may be to-day piled up to form a bar, which a 
high tide and wind will to-morrow send back to its nor- 
mal condition of inherent dead level. Early in the sea- 
son, before the bars are consolidated, every high wind 
and tide does more or less damage to the bars, which 
must be repaired before the box can be used, as no 
brant will come near when it is in sight. Almost every 
newcomer volunteers a plan for preserving the bars, 
such as bags of sand, brush or stone deposits, piles 
driven around, concrete and canvas coverings. Some 
of these have been tried, but, on the whole, without 
success. 

Another desideratum in branting is live decoys. No 
visionary enthusiast need lay the flattering unction to 
his soul that without these, or with wood decoys alone, 
he will meet any degree of success. Decoys are usually 



BRANT SHOOTING. 3OI 

obtained in the course of shooting by being slightly 
wounded in the wing, when a phalanx is amputated and 
the bird is added to the gaggle. The little captives will, 
when placed in a pen with the old ones, commence eat- 
ing corn, their usual diet while in captivity, and, al- 
though they probably never before saw a kernel of 
corn, they thrive well on this simple bill of fare. Pre- 
sumably, in their normal condition, they never see 
fresh water, and yet, in bondage, this is their only 
beverage. Nor do they seem to suffer by the change. 
Another peculiarity about them in captivity is that 
they have no sexual intercourse, lay no eggs, exhibit 
no incubating desire, are cold, dignified and reserved, 
especially toward other fowl, nor do they ever become 
fully domesticated. 

All through the earlier history of branting at this 
place, and up to about 1862, the business was carried 
on by 'longshoremen, who associated themselves to- 
gether, for convenience, in unorganized clubs of from 
three to six persons. In 1863, a club called the Mono- 
moy Branting Club, consisting of four resident and 
fourteen non-resident members, was organized. A lit- 
tle later another club was formed, and still later a 
third ; but neither of these has been as successful as 
the first, probably from the fact that the most avail- 
able shooting points were occupied before they entered 
the field. Of all the immense flats we have previously 
described, not more than four or five points are worth 
occupying, and from a single one of these— the "Mud 
Hole" — about as many brant have been killed as from 



302 DUCK SHOOTING. 

all the others combined. This point has been for nearly 
half a century occupied by one family, father and sons, 
until their interest was merged in the Monomoy Brant- 
ing Club. Fifty years ago, when flint-lock guns w'ere 
in use, the boxes were partly covered over, to prevent 
the diving fowl from catching sight of the flash, and 
thus escaping. 

The guns were run out through embrasures, and this 
method necessitated the order, "Ready! — one, two — 
fire !" It was discovered, however, when the birds were 
with the decoys, that they were not so easily fright- 
ened, and all this roofing-in arrangement was dispensed 
with, more particularly aftejr the invention of percus- 
sion caps. As we have been connected with the Mono- 
moy Branting Club from its birth, our remarks hence- 
forth will have reference more especially to the doings 
of that organization. 

In forming the club, it was arranged that the non- 
resident members — persons living in Boston or vicinity 
— should build and furnish a sJianty, provide boats, 
boxes and the necessary tools for carrying forward the 
enterprise, while the resident members — whose homes 
were at Chatham — should make and keep in repair the 
boxes, do boating, cooking, taking care of the decoys, 
and generally looking after the w^elfare and interests 
of the non-residents. We are happy to add that the 
plan has worked admirably, and to the entire satisfac- 
tion of both "the high contracting parties." It is for 
the time being a sort of co-partnership, the non-resi- 
dents paying a stipulated sum for board and privileges, 



BRANT SHOOTING. 303 

sharing equally with the residents in all the game killed. 
A shanty, or house, 12x16 feet, was built and furnished. 
This, however, was found, a few years later, to be too 
small for the convenience of the members and invited 
guests, and it was enlarged to double its original ca- 
pacity, giving ample room for reading, sleeping, dining, 
cooking, storage, etc. 

We will now suppose the shanty to be in perfect run- 
ning order, three boxes — the "Mud Hole," "North 
Bar" and "Gravel" — generously bestowed in their re- 
spective bars, fifteen live decoys in the pen at the sunny 
side of the shanty, ready for use. 

As the day has been calm, the bars are in good condi- 
tion, and the prospects are favorable that Monday 
morning wall usher in a week of grand sport. It will 
be high tide at 7.15 a. m., and the boxes must be occu- 
pied by 5 o'clock. The alarm-clock, which acts as a sort 
of reveille, is set at 4 o'clock, and brings every man to 
his feet. A hasty repast is improvised, while each gun- 
ner adorns himself with his coarse, heavy wool clothing, 
oil suit, long boots and woolen mittens. Three decoys 
are placed in each basket, and it is astonishing with 
what precision the residents will seize the particular 
birds that are to be worked on the same line, as there 
is no perceptible difference in the size, plumage or 
voices of the sex. The boxes are distant from the 
shanty as follows : "North Bar," about a mile ; "Mud 
Hole," half a mile, and "Gravel," one-third of a mile. 
As the North Bar is lowest, the tide, of course, 
reaches it first ; and as the distance from the shanty is 



304 DUCK SHOOTING. 

greater, Reno, who is as constant at the box as the 
North Star to the Pole, must start first. He takes with 
him S. and H. Tlie high tide of the previous night had 
filled the box, which must be bailed out ere it can be en- 
tered. The decoys are then fettered and allowed to run 
out upon the bar, and as the water is making around us, 
they rush down for a morning bath, which they seem to 
enjoy exceeamgly. Washy, who has for some years 
managed the Mud Hole, is accompanied by M. and 
the doctor, while George, with W., occupies the 
Gravel. The parties have scarcely got well placed 
when a small "pod" of brant come flitting along toward 
the North Bar, and four out of seven were knocked 
down by S. and H., and gathered. "What is that black 
spot away down to the southwest?" asks Reno, after 
gazing steadily for a few moments in that direction. 
'Tt looks like a large flock of brant," he continues, the 
spot still holding his eager eyes. "Yes, it is a flock of 
brant, and they are heading for us," he adds. As the 
flock comes on and on, nearer and nearer, "Yes," he ex- 
claims, "they are making directly for us. Now they 
turn ! There — there they go, right for the Mud 
Hole," his face elongating at the sight. "Now," says 
S., "they have all lighted within two hundred yards of 
the box, and, as the tide is still flowing, they will be 
likely to swim in and give the boys a splendid shot." 
Sure enough, they soon catch sight of the decoys on the 
bar and commence swimming for that point. Only one 
head is now seen above the bar. The resident who 
manages the decoys keeps his eyes steadily above the 



BRANT SHOOTING. 305 

edge of the box to observe what transpires and report 
to his companions, who crouch down out of sight, 
especially when birds are approaching. A.s the brant 
assemble upon and around the bar, the observer will no- 
tice these heads, and he understands the leader has sig- 
nified to his associates that now is the best time to 
shoot, and that they must very gently raise their heads 
so as to look out for the most desirable groups to shoot 
at, and yet not to cross the fire of the others. The or- 
der is now presumed to be given : "Ready — one, two — 
fire!" The first discharge should be simultaneous, the 
second at will. Then the box is suddenly vacated, and 
such a splashing and dashing after cripples, which are 
captured first, and afterward, on the way in, the dead 
birds are picked up. "A big shot," says H. "About a 
dozen," mutters Reno, who is never sanguine. "More," 
says S. "Can tell better when we arrive at the shanty," 
continues Reno. At this moment several sea duck 
{Somatcria mollissiiiia) come puffing along and at- 
tempt to pass the North Bar, when, quick as thought, 
the three guns were aimed, and three eiders were float- 
ing on the flood, while a fourth was struck hard, but 
managed to escape. 

The tide is fast making over the barj now "boring" 
up, now falling off again. "Shall we be driven?" asks 
H. "If it continues to flow hard we probably shall," 
responds Reno. Again it "bores," and a wavelet enters 
the box. The decoys are now unfettered and placed in 
the basket. Another wave forces the party to mount 
the top of the bar. Here is the dread alternative, either 



3o6 DUCK SHOOTING. 

to retreat to the shanty or stand on the bar for a long 
hour, tin the tide ebbs so that they can re-enter. As 
the road lies between the Mud Hole and Gravel, and 
so no shooting can be done at either during the passage, 
it is decided to stand it out. Usually on being driven 
when the Gravel is untenanted they "fleet" thither. At 
high tide, when the wind blows fresh, the birds are 
skipping about pretty lively, and some very good shots 
are likely to be made. A flock of about twenty brant 
drew near the Mud Hole, and was greeted by a salute 
of six guns, and seven dead were left to be gathered, 
beside one "wing-tip," which gave Washy a hard pull 
to overhaul. 

As soon as the tide ebbed so that the North Bar could 
be bailed out, the party re-enter, put out decoys and 
proceed to business; nor were they long idle. "Is that 
a little black cloud or flock of birds away down there 
toward Harwich Point?" asks H. Reno, although re- 
markably vigilant, is not particularly long-sighted, and 
did not at first take in the situation ; but after a while 
the little spot, as it moved slowly along, apparently 
close to the water, attracted his eye. "Oh, yes, I see," 
and the little dark cloud grew bigger and bigger as 
nearer and nearer it came. "Yes, it is a large flock of 
brant coming right for our bar," giving the decoy line 
a jerk at the same time. On, on they come. "Down, 
down !" he cries, and two of the heads disappear. 
"They are now very near," he continues. "There they 
swing around ; now we have them ; they are all in the 
water." The two heads, after a few minutes of awful 



BRANT SHOOTING. 307 

suspense, are slowly raised, and two pair of astonished 
eyes behold a hundred and fifty brant swimming hither 
and thither, coquetting and playing together, entirely 
innocent of danger. Gradually they work their way 
along to the southward of the box, spreading about, 
some quite near and others more remote. At length 
they come together very handsomely within forty yards 
of the box. '"Now is our time," whispers Reno. "Are 
you ready?'' he nervously continues. An affirmative 
response is made, and he gives the order, "Put over! 
One, two — fire!" Bang! bang! go the six barrels; 
splash ! splash ! go the three pairs of long boots. The 
dead and wounded are gathered in with all possible de- 
spatch, and but for one cripple the work would have 
been quickly done. This one, however, gave Reno a 
fearful jaunt. 

Away went our black-footed hero, paddling for dear 
life toward the North Pole, and away went Reno in 
pursuit. The pursuer had not the benefit of a long pair 
of legs, though he had excellent pluck, while the pur- 
sued was blessed with a splendid pair for the work be- 
fore him. Now the brant seemed to gain on his pur- 
suer, and now Reno on the object of his pursuit. S. and 
H. watched with breathless anxiety this little episode 
incident to branting. These birds are not divers, but 
stand up bravely till their pursuer is quite near, when 
they plunge in and swim under water ; but they make 
slow progress, and are then easily captured. Placing 
his bird under his arm, he slowly returns. "Big shot," 
says S. "How many?" inquires Reno, as he jumps into 



3o8 DUCK SHOOTING. 

the box and jjuts the decoy in the basket. "Twenty- 
three," instantly rejoin both S. and H., "and one crip- 
ple, which makes twenty-four," "and this beats any shot 
of the season," he rejoins, at the same time seating him- 
self and commencing to fill his pipe. After such a big 
shot a great many wise remarks are volunteered, a great 
many suggestions made which are to apply to the fu- 
ture, but the future always brings with it an enormous 
amount of vitality. As this conversation was vehem- 
ently progressing a flock of seven brant came up behind 
the box, caught sight of the decoys, swung round twice ; 
but as the tide was nearly off the flats, and as they 
rarely light except in water, it was thought best to 
"give it to them." Four fell dead, while a fifth dropped 
too wide out to be recovered. This was the last shot, 
and as the other parties had long since gone in, Reno 
concluded to "take up." The dead birds are tied in 
bunches, and thrown over their shoulders or across the 
guns, and, amid mutual congratulations, the party 
proudly set out for the shanty. 

Only four shots were fired at the Gravel. At first 
a flock of nine brant came and alighted near the point 
of the bar, and as they "bunched up" five of them were 
murdered in cold blood. Then a pair whirled round 
over the bar, apparently reconnoitering, but this temer- 
ity cost them their lives. The third shot was at a big 
loon {Gavia imhcr), by George, and he was hand- 
somely knocked down at eighty-three yards. A lone 
sheldrake closed the morning's work, and the party 
retired. As soon as Reno entered the shanty he asks : 



BRANT SHOOTING. 309 

"How many did you get, Washy, at that first shot?" 
"Seventeen and two decoys," was the cool reply. "I 
hardly thought you got as many," rejoins Reno. 
"Ought to have had thirty," growls Washy; "and we 
should if I could have kept the doctor down." And 
they all gathered around the breakfast table, as full of 
chatter and merriment as a pack of monkeys. "What 
does the morning's work foot up?" asks H., as the 
record must be entered in the journal. "Well, here it 
is : Mud Hole, 27 ; North Bar, ;^2 ; Gravel, 7 ; a grand 
total of 66 brant." The evening tide is worthless, and 
there will be no more shooting till Tuesday morning. 
That night a fresh breeze sprang up from the south- 
west, bringing along a great many brant, and, more- 
over, doing some damage to the bars ; but there is no 
time in the morning for "sand rolling," and they must 
be hastily patched up for the nonce. 

Tuesday morning, all hands up at 4 o'clock, lunch, 
and start for the boxes in the following order : First 
Reno, with W. and the doctor, for the North Bar; next. 
Washy, at his old haunt, the Mud Hole, with M. and H. 
as companions, and, last, George and S. occupy the 
Gravel. 

As the birds enter the bay mostly from the westward, 
the boxes all face that point of the compass. Scarcely 
had the last party put out the decoys, deposited the bas- 
ket in the box, and comfortably seated themselves, 
when a flock of about seventy-five brant came pushing 
their way along up from the southward and lighted in 
the dark water near Mud H^ole. 



3IO DUCK SHOOTING. 

"Will they swim up with the tide?" asks M. 

"Fine chance for them — it is flowing rapidly." 
Washy answered, as the brant were playing, chasing 
each other and picking up floating eel grass. 

Now they turn and head for the bar, now sag away 
again. Again the birds set toward the box. "Down, 
down !" cries Washy, and he alone is the "observed of 
all observers." On again they come, swimming hither 
and thither within a hundred yards of the three throb- 
bing hearts. Now again they halt, then retreat, as 
though they were suspicious all was not right. At last 
one old "honker" starts for the live decoys, which have 
to be occasionally jerked by the check-cord to make 
them "show wing." 

"Yes," says Washy, "he is coming right on to the 
point of the bar, and the whole flock are following." 

At this juncture of affairs another flock of forty 
sprang up from the westward, shimmered along, swung 
round and lighted with the main body. "R-ronk, 
r-ronk," ring a hundred voices; "Ruk-ruk." as many 
more — and such tumult and confusion ! The guide 
quickly conveys the cheering intelligence that many of 
the brant are so far on the bar as to get "toe-hold," and 
the others are in moderate proximity. These birds are 
quite vigilant, and any sudden movement would in- 
stantly send them beyond the possibility of a hope of 
recovery. 

"Raise your heads slowly," says Washy, and the two 
heads are gradirally elevated to the level of the third, 
when lo ! the bar is dark as Erebus with the waving 



BRANT SHOOTING. 311 

mass. A few moments of nervous consultation as to 
the best group for each to fire at, and the guide whis- 
pers, "Get ready!" Just at this moment the birds 
spread suddenly about and frustrate the plans, pro- 
ducing dreadful uncertainty for a few seconds, but they 
soon "bunch up" again, and the word was given : "Put 
over ! Ready ! Fire !" The smoke of six guns wreathes 
its way heavenward ; out jump the two — splash ! splash ! 
— away they go. Washy lakes a breech-loader along 
with him to knock over any wing-tipped birds that can- 
not otherwise be gathered. One "old honker," with 
just a little bit of a muscle of the carpus pricked by a 
stray pellet, is pulling foot for the dark, deep water off 
Harding's Beach. No non-resident would vuidertake 
to chase a strong bird half a mile, and, if he did, he 
would certainly fail. The motion of the waves ovei 
the white sand brings a dizziness to one not accustomed 
to this work, and makes him feel every moment as 
though he was about to "topple over headlong." Far 
different is it with the guide or leader, who has spent 
his whole life upon the water. Away goes our little 
winged hero, following closely is our stalwart guide. 
Further on and further still they go, almost out of 
sight. On the way out Washy had gathered two or 
three dead birds, which he still held in his hand, and 
when within about a rod of the live bird he throws one 
of the dead, to frighten the living, so that he will dive 
and turn two or three somersaults in a bewildered con- 
dition, so that his pursuer rushes forward and captures 
him. In the meantime the dead and wounded had been 



312 DUCK SHOOTIXG. 

gathered, the 1)ar smoothed off. ready for another crack 
at them. 

"How many?" asks Washy, as he stops to take 
breath. 

"Nineteen and two decoys — twenty-one all told," 
quickly responds H. 

"Well done," says Washy, and it seemed to give him 
a heap of comfort as he placed that decoy in the basket. 

"But look, you," says M. ; "there go nine right up for 
the North Bar." 

"Precisely!" ejaculates Washy, hardly yet recovered 
from his long tramp. Puff, puff ! Away out in the dim 
distance rises the smoke, and the flock is reduced to 
four. Not much time elapsed before a brace of black 
ducks (Anas ohscnra) were swimming in for the 
Gravel. The guns were brought to bear, and in a few 
minutes they were quietly reposing on the bottom of 
the box. The brant had for some time been feeding in 
the channel between Monomoy and Nanset. The regu- 
lar feeding ground extends from near the Mud Hole to 
the inner point, a distance of two miles. In passing 
from one to the other, as they do on each tide, feeding 
in the channel at high tide and at Inner Point at low 
tide, they are very likely to receive a salute as they pass 
in review before the boxes. A shot from the Gravel 
started a large flock from the inner harbor, and as they 
lifted and moved majestically along westward, it was 
like a huge black cloud, so thick and dark. On it moved 
toward the Gravel, and, strange to say, notwithstand- 
ing the water was quite shoal, and in some places near- 



BRANT SHOOTING. 3 13 

ly off the flats, they all dumped down a little distance 
from the bar. Some were within gunshot of the box. 
What was to be done? A thousand brant, all within 
180 yards of the two well-charged guns! As the tide 
was fast leaving the flats, and the birds could walk 
around anywhere, and, moreover, as they began to 
stretch up their necks and show signs of suspicion, it 
was thought best to fire as soon as they should come 
together and offer a favorable opportunity for a good 
shot. This they soon did, and George gave the order, 
and the other two guns belched forth fire and smoke. 
Easy task to gather up the thirteen dead birds that lay 
upon the water. Scarcely was the shot made on the 
Gravel when Washy's eye seemed to be riveted to the 
western horizon. After a few minutes, as if almost 
doubting the correctness of his own eyes, he says : 

"There is a flock of sea ducks coming this way, I 
think. No, they are brant," he continues, with much 
straining of the visual organs. After a few moments' 
pause, he bursts out again : "I declare, they are Soma- 
teria mollissiina, coming right straight for the box !" 

"They look to me more like brant," says M. 

"No," remarks Washy ; "don't you see how steadily 
they fly, and so close to the water?" 

On they came till within about eighty yards of the 
box, when their keen eyes caught sight of some move- 
ment — most likely the nervous motion of cocking the 
guns and getting ready for the reception. They all 
suddenly wheeled to the southward with as much pre- 
cision and regularity as a file of soldiers. A grand 



314 DUCK SHOOTING. 

fusillade of six guns ensued, but only one bird was left 
to remind the gunners of the wariness of these sea 
rovers. 

The tide was now ebbing fast, and George had taken 
up his decoys and retired. A pair of brant came down 
by the North Bar directly for the Mud Hole, and as 
they approached, seemed to slacken up, as if to inspect 
the works or be introduced to the decoys, and as they 
drew close together were both let down by the unerring 
aim of Washy, with a single gun. Then a lone brant 
was despatched by M. A single sheldrake, which, as 
the tide was off the flats, was easily gathered, and this 
ended the morning's sport at this bar. 

The wind, which at early morn was southwest, a lit- 
tle later veered to westward, blowing fresh, and doing 
much damage to the bars, which must be repaired be- 
fore they are in working condition, and the residents, 
with such as would volunteer, went out after dinner 
for that purpose, with barrows and shovels. The bars 
are likely, on a high tide and strong westerly wind, to 
be shifted from the front to the rear of the box, but, as 
the party cannot wait for the next east wind to trans- 
port it back, it must be done by main strength. Roll- 
boards are laid from a distance of two or three rods, 
the barrows are filled, rolled upon the boards, and are 
dumped upon the bar, then leveled to give it an even 
appearance, and the work is done. On this particular 
occasion the Mud Hole received one hundred and sev- 
enty-five of these raw recruits, and it is splendid exer- 
cise—almost equal to dragging a hand-sled up a long 



BRANT SHOOTING. 315 

hill, with a prospect of a "coast" down again. It is also 
an excellent specific against dyspepsia, strengthens the 
muscles, expands the lungs, purifies the blood, and 
brings in its train that sweet repose — that blessed slum- 
ber — entirely unknown to indolent persons. The bars 
are now in good order and ready for the morning's 
sport. 

It is observed on the branting grounds of Cape 
Cod, Mass., that in seasons when there are few young 
brant there is practically no shooting. The old birds 
that visit Cape Cod year after year become perfectly 
familiar with boxes, bars, boats, batteries, decoys, and 
other contrivances used by gunners for their destruc- 
tion. The birds seem to understand perfectly what 
the little piles of sand, with the brant decoys and the 
wooden decoys about them, mean, and give the place a 
wide berth. 

If, however, the young predominate in a flock, 
they will come to the decoys, even though to do so 
they may have to separate themselves from the main 
bunch. Often they will succeed in turning the flock 
and in drawing some or all of the old ones after them. 
When this happens, the birds sometimes come up in 
such numbers that the gunner may knock over twenty 
or more at a shot. 

In order to complete the history of the Monomoy 
Branting Club up to the year 1900, Mr. William Avery 
Cary, the able secretary of the club, has very kindly 
furnished me with the accompanying memorandum of 
the consolidation of the three clubs at Monomoy, and 



3l6 DUCK SHOOTING. 

of the somewhat changed methods prevaiHng there at 
the present time. He says : 

Up to June, 1897, the shooting was carried on by- 
three clubs, the Monomoy, Providence and Manchester, 
so-called, during a season of five weeks, the Monomoy 
taking three weeks and the Manchester and Providence 
one each. At that time the membership of the Mono- 
moy proper was only fifteen. On the date mentioned 
such of the Providence and Manchester members as 
were left took shares in the Monomoy Club, the num- 
ber of shares being increased to twenty-five and the 
number of boxes to five. 

The feed having changed so that the birds did not 
come in to shore as in the past, we were obliged to push 
the boxes further out, and where it became necessary, 
on account of the strong tides and the high waves and 
strong winds, to cover some of the boxes with canvas, 
thereby precluding the use of live decoys, except in the 
very mildest of weather. We then found that they 
were not acting satisfactorily under the unnatural foot- 
ing of canvas. 

The birds gradually became more shy, and appreciat- 
ing that they were of a gregarious nature, we largely 
increased the number of our wooden decoys, so that 
where we used to have twenty-five or fifty birds to a 
box we now have about two hundred decoys, which has 
materially helped our scores. 



DUCK SHOOTING. 



PASS SHOOTING. 



Of all methods of dvick shooting, that known as pass 
shooting is perhaps the most difificult and the most 
sportsmanlike. The gunner stations himself at some 
point where the ducks are likely to fly, and shoots them 
as they pass over him. This point iray be between two 
lakes or two portions of a single lake, or between roost- 
ing and feeding ground, or perhaps only near some 
lake at which the birds stop on their migrations. At all 
events, most of the shooting is overhead at swiftly fly- 
ing birds, and great skill and judgment are required to 
make a satisfactory bag. 

Sometimes the gunner stands behind some cover of 
bushes, or he may sit or kneel in a pit dug in the ground, 
or at times, if the birds are newly arrived, and so are 
unsuspicious, he may stand out in plain view. How- 
ever he may be concealed, if the shooter has been for- 
tunate enough to secure a position in the direct line of 
flight, he will have interesting shooting, and will prob- 
ably receive some new ideas as to the swiftness with 
which a duck passes through the air. 

Graphic accounts of this method of shooting have 
often been published. One of the best of these which 
has appeared in recent years, is from the pen of Mr. E. 
Hough, in Forest and Stream, in which he describes 

317 



T,l8 DUCK SHOOTING. 

a day's shooting, in 1897, in North Dakota, as fol- 
lows : 

At tlie head of the Dead Buffalo Lake there is a nar- 
row strip of water separating it from a smaller lake 
above, and l)etween this little sheltered basin and the 
wide, dee]) water, where the wild celery grows, there is 
a more or less constant flight of ducks. We put out our 
team and hastened quietly as we could down to this 
fly-way, seeking not to alarm the liirds till we had 
taken our stand on the ridge between the lakes, where 
the rushes grow much higher than a man's head and 
run out almost entirely across the narrow channel. 
One of the dogs ran on ahead of us, and even before we 
could run over to the pass, there arose an enormous 
black cloud of ducks, which began to stream over the 
pass and to spread out over the big lake below. 

Each of us had his pockets full of shells, and before 
we had deployed as skirmishers across the pass the 
pockets began to empty. The ducks came in a constant 
stream, without intermission for many minutes, nearly 
all of them low and almost in our faces, and with that 
velocity of flight seen nowhere except on a duck pass. 
The four of us, with shouts and calls and eager vocifer- 
ations of "Mark ! mark ! mark !" poured in such fire as 
we could. I\Ir. Bowers cut down his first two birds 
after his regular style, and Gokey, wading out into the 
middle of the channel, began to fold up birds with the 
smoothness of the old-time shot. I came near stopping 
my own gun to watch the sport of duck shooting on the 




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PASS SHOOTING. 319 

pass, which I consider to be one of the most difficult 
and exciting forms of shooting. High up in the air the 
passing bird would suddenly close up, its head falling 
back, and come down like a stone with an excellent 
great splash. For the Chief, I can say he was diligent, 
and often I saw him cut down his duck, sometimes drop- 
ping it at his feet as he stood on the dry ground. Both 
the Chief and myself were raw at first on the pass, but 
after the flurry we got down to it and shot with our 
average of badness, I suppose. All of us killed ducks, 
many ducks, so many and in such mingled fashion that 
for a time no one could tell whose duck it was that fell 
out of the flight under the pattering fusillade. The re- 
trievers were busy wading and swimming, and we, too, 
at times, paused to pick up a bird or so. In half an hour 
the flight slackened, and we stopped to take account. 
Many of our birds fell back of us in the water, and 
unless killed stone dead such birds were as good as lost ;, 
for they would dive and disappear as soon as they got 
to the water. We could see that many of our ducks were 
canvas-backs and redheads. I shall make it short by 
saying that the first hurried flight did not last long, and 
that during the day, which came off very hot, the birds 
did not move much, Gokey very wisely declining to go 
out and stir them up, as he said that would drive them 
ofi their feeding beds and cause them to leave the lake. 
The evening was still, and the birds did not move as we 
had expected. Moreover, we wxre most of us tired and 
sleepy, and not disposed to kill everything in sight. 
After we had picked up our dead and found such of the 



320 DUCK SHOOTING. 

cripples as we could, we had somewhere between thirty 
and forty ducks. I believe, nearly a dozen and a half of 
which were fine fat canvas-backs and redheads. This 
we voted plenty good enough for us. 

Not so Gokey. Both he and Bowers declared we had 
seen no shooting at all. They held conference, and soon 
announced that on the following day we must be pre- 
pared for a long ride. We were to go to the famous 
Chase Pass, about twenty-four miles northeast of Daw- 
son, and to see what both these gentlemen declared to be 
the best flight of ducks in the whole country. 

Here again I am obliged to say that the representa- 
tions held out did not begin to equal the reality. The 
Chief and myself have traveled a little in this big coun- 
try of America, and have seen ducks all the way from 
British America to Mexico, yet never, even on the Gulf 
coast of Texas, did we ever see so many ducks, such 
comfortable, obliging ducks, and ducks so accessible 
and incessant. It was a wonderful sight of wildfowl — 
one of those sights which make the unthinking say that 
there are "just as many ducks now as there ever were." 
Gokey said this was always a great place for ducks, but 
that this year the birds were more numerous than for 
many years previous, thanks to high water and to the 
license law, which cut off the non-resident market 
shooting and reduced that of game hogs who knew no 
moderation. Gokey said that up to the past two years 
it was a daily sight at Dawson station to see the entire 
platform lined v/ith ducks waiting for the train to bear 
them out of the State. He said that in warm weather 



PASS SHOOTING. 321 

it was no unusual thing to see two or three wagon loads 
of spoiled ducks hauled out into the country and 
dumped into a coulee. He seemed to take comfort in 
the hope of better things. Both he and Warden Bow- 
ers are assured of the wisdom of the non-resident act, 
whatever the non-resident himself may think about it. 
I think both the Chief and myself would be disposed 
now to say that if a shooter can in any way afford it, it 
would pay him better to pay his $25 in North Dakota, 
where he can get some shooting and where the birds are 
not being destroyed in such quantities for the markets, 
than to go to some more liberal but more illy-stocked 
State for a sporting trip. I know this license law has 
stopped much shooting and cut off much non-resident 
travel to North Dakota, for the gun stores of St. Paul 
and Minneapolis complain that it has hurt their trade 
with sportsmen who outfit for shooting trips to the 
Northwest. Even the railroads don't like the law, for 
it lessens their traffic. The ducks, however, are to be 
congratulated upon it, and so are those whose fate en- 
ables them to get a look in at one of the greatest re- 
maining sporting grounds of America. 

It was 1 1 :45 in the morning when our long ride over 
the easy prairies came to a pause at the famous Chase 
Pass. From the high ridge which rims in this valley 
we looked down and saw two great lakes, each reaching 
away four or five miles from the point of view, each 
perhaps half a mile or more across. Between these two 
bodies of clear water there stretched a high ridge of 
hard, dry ground, apparently a Cjuarter of a mile across 



322 DUCK SHOOTING. 

from water to water, and about 40 feet above the sur- 
face of the water at the summit of the ridge. There 
was a Hght wind moving, and the water was rippled 
and moving, so that we could see no ducks at first. As 
we drove down nearer to the bank we caught sight of 
thousands of black, bobbing figures, all over the whole 
face of the waters. In shore, and now not over a few 
hundreds of yards from us, there rested upon the bars 
literally a black mass of ducks, thousands upon thou- 
sands. This is not the enthusiasm of a man who has 
never seen many birds before, but is the literal and calm 
truth. I never in my life have seen so great a body of 
wildfowl at one time. Soon the birds began to soar up 
and circle blackly about, and in time the air was dark 
with a countless multitude of circling, twisting and 
turning fowl, each bunch with a different direction 
from the others. It was enough to drive one crazy. 

Neither Bowers nor Gokey showed any signs of los- 
ing his mind, though I feared for the Chief. For my 
own part, I have a vague recollection that I stood upon 
one foot while the team was being turned out and the 
deliberate preparations made for the hunt. 

"Take plenty of shells," was about all the advice 
Warden Bowers had to ofifer. "You'll Died them all. 
for you won't kill every shot." 

So we took each a back load and hurried off to the 
pass over which the birds were streaming, ^^'e had 
been told that on this pass, no matter what the weather, 
the ducks fly all day long. This we did not believe, but 
set down as "ag'in natur'." Yet we found it true this 



PASS SHOOTING. 323 

day at least, though the morning started in very fair 
and warm. 

We found that a series of pits had been dug along the 
ridge, a few feet below the summit, deep enough so that 
the shooter would be concealed when he crouched down. 
In these pits we saw many old shells, but these were 
weather-beaten and showed to be those of last year. 
We were the first to shoot on this wonderful pass in the 
wonderful duck year of 1897. 

Gokey took the furthest pit, Bowers next to him, 
then myself, then the Chief, who thus was furthest to 
the left as he faced to the west, from which direction 
the first flight came. We hurried under many passing 
flocks as we trotted into the firing line, and as soon as 
we got located each began to shoot. The ducks were 
most accommodating, and came to us at first in a vast 
mass, out of which it was next to impossible to pick out 
any individual birds. The speed of the flight was ter- 
rific, and the hiss of the wings cutting, low and close or 
whispering high overhead, was never absent from the 
ear. Nor was there absent the steady cracking of the 
guns. Gokey's regular double report, mingled with 
the cornsheller activity of Bowers' repeating Winches- 
ter, smote my ear on the right, while nearby on the 
left the sharp crack of the Chief's little 12-gauge 
sounded incessantly. Not one shot out of four landed 
its game, but, none the less, there was a series of heavy 
thumps all about us, more especially to the right of the 
firing line, where the two Dakota men were in action. 

After a while we had a little let up and I looked over 



324 DUCK SHOOTING. 

to see how the Chief was getting along. I then had 
about a dozen ducks piled up in my pit, most of them 
belonging to Bowers, I presume, but when I approached 
the Chief he was sitting with his head in his hand, 
gloomily looking down at a hen spoonbill which he had 
chased into the grass and killed with a stick. 

"What's the matter, Chief?" I asked him, kindly and 
like a perfect gentleman. 

"The truth is," said he sadly, as he looked up from 
the hen spoonbill, "I can't land on 'em. Now, I've 
been holding for the solar plexus of about 4,000 indi- 
vidual ducks that have sashayed across here, but I can't 
seem to land on 'em. When I lead they — don't misun- 
derstand me — they duck, as it were. They ain't there. 
How about that ? Are these things too good for every- 
body ? How did you fellows happen to get any ? Did 
you shoot into the flock and hit another flock?" 

I explained to the Chief that I got ducks by watching 
closely where Mr. Bowers was shooting and then shoot- 
ing into the same flock with him. He regretted that he 
was so far out of the way of this sort of assistance that 
he could not avail himself of anybody's skill but his 
own, and he hadn't any. 

The Chief and T then concluded to visit a while, and 
we shot together out of his pit for a few rounds. By 
this time the birds had begun to come back from the 
east, and now the fun grew yet more fast and furious. 
The flocks would start from the eastern lake high up in 
the air. "Mark east !" would come the warning down 
the line, and each man would get below the level of the 



PASS SHOOTING. 325 

ridge. As the birds approached the high ground they 
would drop rapidly and come over the pass parallel with 
the ground and very low. They would roll over the 
top of the little ridge beyond us, dip down into the cou- 
lee across our front, disappear for a moment, and then 
come surging and boiling and whistling up in a long, 
swift, feathery wave over the crest of our breastworks, 
hissing almost into our faces as they swept on out to- 
ward the water. Never was such an exciting situation 
in the world ! 

Never in all my life did I see such shooting. It was 
a glimpse, a glance and then a swift wheel to get a fair 
shot at a disappearing bunch almost over the edge of 
the reeds which lined the water's edge behind us. 
Sometimes the ducks flew almost into our faces. Often 
we dodged down to escape what seemed an imminent 
danger of losing a hat or a head. Twice I shot ducks 
ahead of me which fell thirty feet behind me. Once I 
had a fat duck come crushing into the pit beside me, 
and once I dropped a teal against the bank of my pit. A 
more perfect embodiment of a hot corner on ducks 
never existed. It was almost bewildering in its ten- 
sion. It was a delirium of ducks. 

The Chief and I shot from his pit together, and after 
a time we both began to improve, coaching each other 
on the lead as the different flocks came by. I could see 
that he was stopping his gun when he fired and holding 
about six feet ahead on birds where he should have led 
twenty. I could see the line of his smoke cut in appar- 
ently a dozen feet behind the bird which he thought he 



326 DUCK SHOOTING. 

was leading almost too much. He did an equal service 
by me, and soon we began to acquire the lead, a distance 
which seemed utterly absurd at first. The pile of birds 
at our pit began to grow. At lunch time the Chief had 
become a finished performer on the pass. A very nice- 
looking farmer lady came out with a very nice-looking 
lunch, and as she drove up, the Chief and I rose and cut 
out four ducks from a passing flock, just to show the 
lady how it was done. Alas for me ! I fell down on 
my next chance, but the Chief killed a pair out the next 
flight over. Then, as we gathered at the reed bed for 
luncheon, he cut down a high single, and a moment 
later yet another. I saw a glance of triumph come into 
his eye. He had caught the knack of it. 

At lunch we paused now and then to kill, or try to 
kill, the ducks which continued to pour over. Mr. 
Bowers told me that he and some friends once killed 
fourteen ducks at that same spot while they were eating 
lunch one day. I think we dropped half a dozen or so 
before we had cleaned up the lunch. A bountiful and 
well-cooked one it was, and to have it thus brought 
down warm from the farmhouse was the last touch of 
comfort on this dry, comfortable and absolutely ideal 
fly-way. A good part of our lunch was made up of 
four grouse, which we had picked up along the road ; 
almost the only grouse we saw in this part of the coun- 
try, where they are very scarce this year. 

After our lunch we resumed position in the skirmish 
line, minus Gokey^, who had a headache and did not 
shoot for a while. It was an old storv with Gokev, and 



PASS SHOOTING. 327 

it did not take him long to kill the twenty-five birds 
which make the limit per diem for a shooter in the State 
of North Dakota. With the Chief and myself it was 
different. We got a good deal bigger run for our 
money than anybody else, because we shot worse. It 
now began to be a struggle of courtesy between us all. 
"I never touched that bird; it's yours, my friend," I 
would say to the Chief. "Your bird, sir," he would 
reply, with equal courtesy ; and so we would argue 
over it. 

Bowers and I nearh' scared the Chief to death by 
covertly piling up a lot of our birds in front of his pit 
and then proceeding to count them before him. We 
made it out to be twenty-nine birds, and the warden 
told him it would cost him $400! 

It would seem that one should soon kill his limit on a 
flight like this, and so he can, even though he be new at 
the sport of pass shooting — the hardest shooting in the 
world, and not to be compared with the easy work of 
shooting over decoys. Yet I have noticed that even the 
best shots will spoil 100 shells to pick up twenty-five 
ducks on a pass like this, and it takes a little while to 
shoot 100 shells, especially after the first flurry is over 
and one steadies down and behaves like a shooter, pick- 
ing his shots and taking care. We had shot a little 
over a couple of hours before we thought it best to 
rectify our rough counts of individual bags and to go 
after the birds which had fallen dead back of us in the 
reeds. Bowers and I went over the crest of the ridge 
to look for some birds we had killed on the hard 



^2S DUCK SHOOTING. 

ground, and while we were there we saw the prettiest 
bit of shooting done on the trip. 

The Chief was then alone in the pit over which the 
main flight was passing, and he had his eye on the birds. 
He took toll out of everything that crossed. Five 
times we saw him rise and fire at flocks and small bodies 
of birds, and each time he got meat. Once he killed all 
three of three ducks that went over down wind, high 
and fast, a handsome bit of work. Twice he dropped 
his double out, and out of five accepted chances he did 
not miss a shot. It was good enough fun to sit and 
watch this, and Bowers and I both concluded we had no 
more advice to offer him. When we got to his pit we 
found him radiant and hugging to his bosom the light 
J2-gauge, with which he w'as now thoroughly in- 
fatuated. He expressed himself as for once absolutely 
satisfied with the world. "Did you see me deflate that 
last un ?" he asked cheerfully. 

When we picked up our birds we found that, count- 
ing a half dozen birds w'e had given the farmer's wife, 
we had our limit, or so near it that we did not care to go 
closer — ninety-eight birds in all. Thereupon came up 
human nature, as the Chief and I both realized. It was 
the first day we had had outdoors wath a gun for a long 
time, and the best chance to kill a lot of ducks either of 
us had ever had in all his life. I confess that my per- 
sonal wish was to kill some more. I wanted to try just 
one or two shots more. I wanted to see if I could kill a 
double out of the flock just heading for us. I wanted 
— well, I admit I wanted to go ahead and shoot a lot. 



PASS SHOOTING. 329 

But this we did not do, and after we saw the awful pile 
of game we had when we got it together, every one of 
us was mighty glad we had killed no more, even the 
question of the law aside. All of these birds, except 
those eaten by ourselves, were taken to Fargo and there 
disposed of, Mr. Bowers and myself laboring faithfully 
till we had them all given away. It is sure we killed 
enough. How many we could have killed had we all 
shot all day long as steadily as possible I should not like 
to say. I believe we could easily have fired from 500 to 
600 shells apiece and have killed perhaps one-fourth or 
more of that number of birds apiece. But what a 
butchery that would have been, for even our one party. 
What a butchery it would be for many parties, taken 
for not one day, but for many days. I never had the 
lesson of moderation more forcibly impressed upon me. 
It was not at first pleasant, I admit, and I vaguely 
found the customary excuses for doing what I wanted 
to do, just as human nature always finds such excuses ; 
but once the temptation was overcome we each of us 
felt happy. We are each ready to say that the killing 
of twenty-five ducks on a red-hot pass is fun enough for 
one day for any man, and that the law is a good one 
and should stand and be respected. This limit is one 
which should be set in every gentlemen's shooting club 
all over the land. It is enough. It is at the moment 
hard to realize it, but it is enough. Stop at twenty- 
five, and you feel bad at the time, but good after a 
while. 

So we went away long before evening, while a cold 



33<^ DUCK SHOOTING. 

Storm was blowing up, and while over the greatest duck 
pass of the Northwest the long black streamers of the 
llight were growing thick and thicker. Into the night, 
over roads made softer by a drizzling rain, we drove, 
reaching town late, but very well contented. 

Precisely similar to pass shooting is that mode which 
is sometimes practiced in the East and called bar 
shooting. 

Less than loo miles from New York, in the harbor 
of a New England town, is a little island which at low 
water is connected with the mainland by a long bar. 
On either side of this bar are feeding grounds for the 
ducks, and in autumn, winter and spring the birds at 
morning and evening fly between the two feeding 
grounds and so between the island and the mainland. 
When the tide is low, in the morning or at evening, the 
gunners often gather on this bar, and, stationing them- 
selves a gunshot or more apart, wait for the ducks to 
fly. The birds are chiefly scoters of two or three kinds, 
old squaws, a few broadbills in spring and always a few 
whistlers and buffle-heads. Sometimes, if the weather 
is entirely calm, no birds at all will fly across the bar ; 
at other times, if it is stormy or foggy, there may be 
quite a flight — half a dozen flocks of old squaws, as 
many of coots, one or two small flocks of broadbills and 
scattering whistlers and dippers, with rarely a black 
duck. Sometimes the coots, if the breeze is gentle, will 
fly across at considerable height, too far off to be 
reached liy shot, and then occasionally they may be 



PASS SHOOTING. 331 

brought down within gunshot by the shrill yell of one 
of the gunners or even by a shot fired at them. It is 
curious to see a dozen of these great birds turn almost 
completely over at the unexpected sound and dash down 
toward the water. 

The gunners in this shooting do not make use of any 
blind, but crouch low on the stones of the bar, keeping 
motionless and out of sight until the birds are nearly 
over them. In such shooting I once saw a man cut 
down two eider ducks out of a flock of coots passing 
over him. 

Similar to this is the shooting which is practiced in 
New England on the hills which separate the wide, 
open w^aters from some more sheltered bay or lake to 
which the birds may wish to resort. In quiet weather 
when the birds do not come in until a long time after 
dark, this shooting is practiced only at night. But on 
stormy days the flight of ducks and geese often begins 
two or three hours before dark, and black ducks, pin- 
tails and geese may fly from that time until darkness 
has shut down, and some may be killed. If the wind 
is from a quarter where the birds are obliged to face it 
they often fly very low and the shooting is then ex- 
tremely easy, if their course brings them within range 
of the gunner. 

If they are shot at night it must be a cloudv night 
with a moon. On a bright moonlight night the birds 
cannot be seen unless they pass very near to the gunner, 
and even then he is likely to have only a glimpse of 



332 DUCK SHOOTING. 

them, while if a bright moon is shining behind clouds 
the diffused light renders the whole sky so light that 
duck or goose can be seen quite a long way off and the 
gunner has little difficulty in knowing just when and 
where to shoot. 

Twenty years ago this method of shooting was prac- 
ticed to a considerable extent in New England and with 
not a little success. It was not very uncommon for a 
good shot to kill in an evening two or three geese and 
perhaps five or six ducks. We imagine that of late 
years much less of it has been done, particularly as in 
many States all night shooting is forbidden. 

At certain points on the South Atlantic coast, notably 
at Carroll's Island, in the old time, overhead shooting, 
as it is called there, has been practiced for many years. 
This came in after the fowl, through much pursuit, had 
become wild and no longer came to decoys at the points. 
At first these overhead birds used to fly within range, 
but as they were shot at more and more they took to 
flying higher. Where at first ordinary lo-gauge guns 
were used, 12-pound 8's presently became necessary. 
Later, heavy 8-gauge guns, weighing from 16 to 19 
pounds, were used, and finally single-barrel 4-gauge 
guns, weighing from 19 to 22 pounds and shooting BB 
or even larger shot, were fired at these flocks, which 
looked almost like bumble bees as they passed over the 
land. Often the sport was good, and we know of a 
man who killed irr three days 117 canvas-backs and red- 
heads from these overhead flocks. 



IN THE OVERFLOW. 333 



SHOOTING IN THE OVERFLOW. 

Wildfowl shooting in the timber is practiced in 
many parts of the South at seasons when the rivers 
overflow their banks and spread over the low wooded 
country through which they pass. Sometimes the 
shooting is done in the pleasant autumn months, when 
the October haze covers woods and fields with its light 
veil, or, again, it may be followed in early spring, when 
the winds howl noisily among the tree tops amid rain 
and snow flurries. Suitable conditions for timber 
shooting do not always prevail, for very often neither 
spring nor fall overflow takes place. When, however, 
the Mississippi River does break out of banks in the 
autumn and covers much of the low country, making 
more accessible the acorns and the roots and the shoots 
that the birds like so well, great sport may be had in the 
OA'crflowed lands, to which all the fresh-water ducks 
resort, though the most of them are mallards. 

When such conditions prevail, if the gunner can 
choose a stormy, windy day, when the birds find it un- 
comfortable to sit out in the broad, open waters, and 
can find a place in the timber where the ducks are feed- 
ing, he is likely to have great shooting. Of course, he 
must go thither in a boat, and usually two men go 
together — one to paddle and the other to shoot. 

On the way through the timber many shots will be 
had at birds sprung from the water by the approach of 
the boat, but when the spot is reached where the ducks 



334 DUCK SHOOTING. 

have been feeding, a dozen or twenty decoys will be 
thrown out, and a blind built for the boat. Often this 
consists merely of a few branches stuck in the mud by 
the vessel's side, or it may be practicable to push it into 
tall grass or reeds, which will form a natural blind. 
Whatever spot is chosen, the gunner must have 
plenty of elbow room for himself and his companion, 
for there is no greater handicap in shooting than being 
cramped. 

Usually the birds that have been feeding in this place, 
and which have been driven away by the boat's ap- 
proach, will very soon begin to come back, and w'ill 
come in very gently to the decoys, offering extremely 
pretty and easy shooting. Besides this, on a day such 
as described, small bunches of birds are continually 
flying about over the timber, looking for places where 
the feed is good, and seeing the imitation ducks float- 
ing on the water, at once lower their flight to secure 
their share of the good things their companions are 
feeding on. 

Often, if they are permitted to do so, the ducks will 
alight among the decoys, and sometimes those that are 
particularly gentle will even begin to feed with them ; 
but the lack of motion in the wooden stools soon ren- 
ders them suspicious, and they spring into the air with 
a sharp quack, only to be cut down before they fairly 
get on the wing. 

If by chance, while good shooting is being had on 
such a day, the wind should suddenly die down, it will 
be found that the shooting ceases almost at once, for 



RIVER SHOOTING. 335 

the birds then cease to tiy and resort to the open water 
and sit there until dark. 



RIVER SHOOTING. 

River shooting is practiced with great effect in many 
parts of the country where narrow streams, flowing 
through deep beds, permit the gunner to walk along 
their winding course, and to shoot the ducks as they 
rise before him. In the same way, in the South, and 
indeed in many portions of the country, from the 
Southern States to California, river shooting is prac- 
ticed by paddling along narrow streams, keeping close 
to the banks, and shooting the ducks as they get up. 
In this last form of the sport two men are usually re- 
quired, one man sitting in the bow with his gun, the 
other handling the paddle in the stern. Usually the 
gunners take turns, one paddling for an hour, and then 
being relieved by his companion, and shooting for an 
hour. In the narrow sloughs of Ohio, Illinois, Indiana 
and Minnesota the same sport is practiced. During the 
migration, these sloughs, which are often bordered by 
wild rice, or, at all events, produce abundant vegetable 
food, are resorted to by the ducks, and often the 
stream's course is so tortuous that the birds rise not 
more than twenty or thirty yards before the boat. 
Shooting of this description is usually easy, since the 
birds spring into the air and give the gunner a straight- 



S3^ DiCK SHOOTl.WG. 

away or climbing shot. On the other hand, many 
crippled birds are likely to be lost, as they fall on the 
land or in the thick grass or weeds of the bank. For 
this reason a well-trained dog — a setter, pointer, or 
water-dog — is of great assistance, since he is sure to 
find many birds that would otherwise be lost. 

This is a favorite method of shooting in many parts 
of the South, and men who practice it are enthusiastic 
about it. Such an one is the writer of an account of 
"Duck Floating on the Tombigbee River," in Southern 
Alabama, printed in Forest and Stream over the signa- 
ture P. B. M., which reads as follows: 

I closely scanned the river below me as it lay glisten- 
ing in the morning's sunlight. With my spyglass I 
looked under the overhanging willows and into the lit- 
tle nooks and corners along the shore. Very soon a 
fine flock of mallards emerged from under the willow 
that had hidden them from our view. One by one they 
came out and gazed without any signs of fright at the 
green floating mass that our boat appeared to be. As 
soon as the plumage of these birds was plain and the 
bright emerald green of the drakes' heads was distinct 
( for by this time the current had silently carried us near 
to them) I, with one barrel on the water and the other 
on the wing, killed seven of these fine fowls and re- 
ceived most gracefully the compliments of Kirk upon 
my skill. All sportsmen know how animating a good 
beginning is in a day's sport and how the expectation of 
killing more game lends a keener zest to the pursuit. 



RIFER SHOOTING. ^t,/ 

So it was with us as the gentle Bigby bore us down its 
current to as glorious a day's shooting as ever fell to 
mortal lot. More mallards swam out from under wil- 
lows and so many were killed that the bottom of our 
boat was covered, and 1 was covered, too, with Kirk's 
compliments. I made quick double shots right and left 
and capped the climax of Kirk's good opinion by call- 
ing his attention to two ducks thirty feet apart, promis- 
ing to kill both at one shot on the wing, which I did in 
spite of his assertion that "it can't be did." 

Below Camber's, where the river was eddy, the sharp 
brown nose of a beaver was thrust up above the water's 
surface, and his curiosity was rewarded by a load of 
BB shot. The beaver sank out of sight, leaving the 
water red with blood. My guide told me he would 
soon rise, but not to fire until he told me. In a few sec- 
onds the animal slowly rose to the surface and swam to 
the shore. As he crawled up on the bank I obeyed my 
companion's order "to fire," and killed the beaver. Be- 
fore the smoke of my gun had cleared away, a quick 
stroke of the paddle carried the skiff to land, when, 
leaping out. Kirk seized the beaver, preventing his roll- 
ing into the water, and threw him into our boat. 

Of all modes of locomotion that of gliding down the 
smooth current of a river in an open boat is the most 
delightful ; it soothes the senses and quiets the nerves 
in a way indescribable. Softly floating down the cur- 
rent of that river so rich in Indian lore, with a sky over- 
head like Italy's, I thought of the dusky old chiefs, 
Tombecbee and Tishabee, whose names "are on our 



338 DUCK SHOOTING. 

waters still," whose hunter's shout made these grand 
old woods ring. These red men, like me, once drank 
in the beauty of this scene, where the mock orange trees 
bloomed and the golden water-grass filled the river's 
edge, while visions of the happy hunting grounds came 
to them. 

We reached Houston's Island, where hundreds of 
ducks were feeding, a sight to gladden any sportsman's 
heart, as their bright plumage glistened in the sun. 
Here Kirk, by skillful paddling, brought me into close 
range, and more victims fell to our guns. Here on this 
island, my guide tells me, is where Sam Rowe, the bar- 
keeper, with his little Winchester, killed his big buck 
from the deck of the boat, whose horns ornament the 
boat, and upon which horns Sam "hangs many a tale" 
for the amusement of the passengers. 

We drifted along under the high, white cliffs of Bluff 
Port, and just below Kirk discovered, standing on the 
heights, a flock of turkeys. We allowed our boat to 
float directly under them, so as to be concealed. Then 
my companion went ashore, took off his shoes and tied 
his rifle to his back with his suspenders, and ascended 
the cliff in a zigzag fashion. Almost as soon as he 
reached the top the sharp crack of the rifle told the 
doom of a big gobbler that was thrown down to me. 
Kirk's gobbler took away all appetite for killing mal- 
lards, but not for lunch, so we kindled a fire and fell 
upon our eatables with a hearty zest, while I was enter- 
tained with hunting stories. We got adrift again and 
floated lazily on, not caring much for the ducks that we 



RIVER SHOOTING. 339 

would sometimes drift upon so noiselessly that we 
would catch them asleep upon logs, with their heads 
tucked under their wings. Our boat was nearly full, 
and often we did not disturb the slumbers of the solitary 
old drake as he enjoyed his siesta on a log. 

As we pass Spring Bluff we hear the mellow notes of 
Steve Brown's horn vainly endeavoring to call back his 
dogs from the pursuit- of a deer. The deer's crossing 
place on the river was only a quarter of a mile below, 
and Kirk took his place quickly in the middle of the 
boat, seized his oars and pulled hard and fast that we 
might intercept him. \Yt were just in time to see a 
big buck take to water, and a few pulls on the oars 
brought us in range of him. Kirk threw up his rifle, 
took steady aim and fired, but only wounded him. We 
could travel faster than the deer in water, and the skiff 
was soon alongside of the deer, and Kirk took him by 
the horns. A deer sinks like lead when shot dead in 
water, and we had to manceuvre well to get him to the 
shore. Kirk proposed to mount and ride him ashore, as 
we were towed along, but to this I objected, thinking it 
best to gain a little time for Brown's dogs to come. 
The dogs soon arrived, and seeing the situation of 
things swam out to our assistance. With their aid the 
deer was killed, landed, disemboweled and was soon 
lying with our game in the boat. 

We were soon adrift again, and long shadows on the 
Bigby's bosom told us that the day was closing. Away 
below we heard the welcome sound of the "Clara's" 
double whistle. As the current carries us down, our 



3-!0 DUCK SHOOTING. 

game is counted : Thirty-se\en mallards, six teals and 
one deer and turkey are our trophies. Two great black 
columns of smoke are now just below, and the steamer 
sweeps around the bend in full view. The broad, 
good-humored face of Captain Ham greets us from the 
roof as he calls out, "What do you w^ant?" In reply I 
seized a dead mallard by the legs and waved it in the 
air. The alarm whistle was blown and the engine 
slowed, and as we ride the waves alongside, our friends, 
the officers, welcome us with hearty greeting. Old 
Captain Bennett, the mate, seized our rope as we threw 
it aboard ; then 1 was jerked on the steamer by the arm 
and our boat hauled up. We return the Captain's com- 
pliments on our skill by presenting him with the turkey, 
while good old Sam Rowe must needs treat us all 
around, except the Captain. 

In spring, when the snows are melting and the 
weather is wet. the narrow streams from which one 
n;ay expect to jump ducks are likely to be bank full, 
and when this is the case the man wdio is walking along 
them for ducks must often use considerable care and 
skill to approach within shot without being seen. This 
is often very difficult and requires much creeping 
through mud and water, and even then may fail. 

In California, and on some western rivers, a modifi- 
cation of "floating" takes place. The gunner, without 
a companion, occupies a low. flat boat, which rises but 
little above the water; sometimes the flat deck of this 
boat is fitted up with hooks or loops by means of which 



RIVER SHOOTING. 34 1 

weeds, grass or branches of trees are fastened to it, so 
that when seen from the level of the water the boat 
looks merely like a mass of drift stuff coming- down the 
stream. The gunner, when he reaches the point where 
he intends to begin to shoot, ships his oars, and passing 
a sculling oar through the hole in the stern of the boat, 
lies on his back and slowly sculls the vessel with the 
current. His eyes are just above the mass of the trash 
on the deck, and he is alile to scan the surface of the 
stream before him. If he sees ducks he directs the boat 
toward them and slowly approaches to within shot. If 
he is careful, the birds are not likely to take the alarm 
until he has come as near to them as he wishes to. 
When he rises, the birds take wing, and he fires. 

Floating for ducks is likely to be practiced at any 
time in spring or fall, but it is quite obvious that it is 
likely to be more successful in the early winter, after the 
quiet ponds and slow-flowing sloughs are frozen, than 
when all the water is open. If, for example, the 
weather in the Northern States should have been cold 
for a few days, late in November, so as to close much 
of the feeding ground, and there is a swift-flowing 
stream that has not yet been frozen, good shooting is 
usually to be found there. It will be had, however, 
only at the expense of considerable suffering from cold, 
but it is sure to be good. An account of such a day's 
shoot, written by Mr. E. Hough for Forest and Stream, 
is worth quoting: 

It was very cold ; our boat was calked by the fingers 



342 DUCK SHOOTING. 

of the frost and could not leak a drop. We shivered 
under our heavy coats. Far and wide the bottoms 
were a sheet of ice, for winter had caught old Skunk 
"out on a high," though the water was now within the 
banks, ice being on either shore, and the meagre current 
in the middle looked blue-black and forbidding in the 
morning light. A cold wind whistled through the 
trees, and the whole scene was so dismal that it was 
with feelings almost of foreboding that we stepped 
aboard and shoved off, heading eastward, where a faint 
gray streak told of the coming day. Fifteen minutes 
passed in silence as we sped on down the racing current. 
Then a sharp whizz greeted our ears as a solitary spike- 
tail crossed from the right. We dropped two empty 
shells in the bottom of the boat, and the duck went right 
on ; a double miss to begin on. Now an old mallard 
starts from under the willows and he comes down dead 
all over. Two more follow and meet a like fate. Then 
they start up by the hundred, from under the ice, 
among the willows, from the dry ground. "Shoot! 
shoot!" my companion cries, and as fast as I can work 
the top-snap I comply. Half our ducks fell on shore, 
and before we could break through the ledge of ice 
many of the cripples were lost beyond recovery, some- 
times creeping off a hundred feet beneath a sheet of ice, 
where a man could not follow them. 

We now exchanged places, and Virgil took the bow 
with both guns, it being our agreement that but one 
should shoot at a lime, we not caring to add another to 
the list of accidents from careless shootins; in boats. 



RIVER SHOOTING. 343 

As we rounded a bend I noticed my friend trying to 
catch a sight on a big mahard which was swimming 
ahead of him. "Trying to shoot on the water, are you, 

hey?" said I; "see here " "No, I am not. He's 

dived twice. Hold on ! Whoa ! Back water ! Con- 
found him ; there he goes again !" And that duck was 
never seen again. After several such experiences we 
concluded to shoot on sight. With few exceptions the 
single ducks would dive instead of flying. It was most 
provoking to get within thirty yards of a fine duck and 
then, just as you expect to see him start up to meet an 
honorable death, see him settle down in the most ap- 
proved hell-diver style, till his eye just showed above 
water line, and then dive to shot. These "slinkers," 
as we called them, were all mallards, though I have 
seen redheads do the same thing. They^were nearly 
all uninjured, so far as we could see. Sometimes we 
could see two or three skulking along the edge of the 
river with their heads down, trying to escape notice till 
they could hide or dive. The day was very cold, ice 
formed on our oars so thick that we often had to stop 
and pound it off. and it struck us that the birds were 
possibly too numb to fly or had their wing tips frozen 
fast. A friend afterward suggested that these were all 
crippled birds, driven in by the freeze, but some of their 
actions and their numbers precluded the idea with us, 
though the shooting had been very heavy that fall. 

Meantime imagine us gliding down the swirling cur- 
rent, between long rows of ice-laden, creaking willows, 
now running full before the wind, now rounding a bend 



344 DUCK SHOOTING. 

to meet a row of whitecaps which dashed an icy spray in 
our faces, now piilHng straight away, now veering 
quickly to escape a sunken k^g or projecting ice ledge. 
We scarcely knew our familiar stream in its changed 
appearance. Sometimes we ran through the woods for 
mi'es without knowing where we were. 

The black and angry clouds, the ice fields, the strange 
sounds in the woods and the swiftly moving vistas of 
the ever-changing, restless river made up an effect 
which will not soon pass away. It was novel, it was 
glorious, this boating with the mercury below zero and 
the river narrowing slowly. Would I have changed 
my uneasy seat in this winter panorama to hunt any 
other game on foot or on horseback, or play any fish 
beside a summer pool ? By no means. Such fascina- 
tion I have never known. 

It was the last day of the season and all the ducks in 
the country were crowded along that narrow channel, 
and no one else was there to molest or make afraid. 

Whang! went Virgil's gun. "I got that old slinker 
that time," said he. Sure enough. We could see his 
red feet paddling against the transparent ice as he 
A'ainly tried to dive. W^e had learned to believe it as 
honorable to shoot a duck diving as one flying. 

At noon we landed, stretched our limbs and ate our 
frozen lunch. We had now nearly as many ducks as 
we thought it honorable to take. I realized that if we 
would catch the evening train we must hasten. So 
cautioning Virgil- not to shoot any more, I took the 
oars, and we flew down stream at a livelv rate. Run- 



RIVER SHOOTING. 345 

ning thus for some time in silence, except an occasional 
"Port a little! straight away!" from my companion, I 
was startled by the double report of his gun, followed 
by the whistle of a flock of mallards as they passed up 
stream. Two ducks lay stone dead upon the water. 
"Thought you weren't going to shoot any more," said 
I. "Well," said he, a little ashamed, "I couldn't help 
it ; the old gun would come up, and I had to hold her, 
you know." We changed again before long, and I 
made a righteous resolve not to shoot another duck, and 
allowed several to pass unsaluted. Finally an old 
drake came shooting along by the river. "It would be 
a sin," thought I, "to kill that duck, for we have a 
plenty. Shoot him? No. That's not so easy, though. 
I don't know — I guess — just watch me drop him as 
he crosses." Now, is not that an intense moment, 
when the gun comes just against the shoulder and the 
duck seems glued to the end of the barrel ? Every in- 
tervening object is blotted out ; you can see nothing but 
the duck, and he falls to the crack of the gun as if you 
had struck him dead wath a concentrated eye glance. 
But, alas ! alas ! for my principles. I had killed another 
duck! 

We now left both guns unloaded, and one taking his 
seat in the stern with the paddle and the other at the 
oars, w^e went ahead in grand style, and in due time 
reached our journey's end. Here we pulled out our 
boat and locked her to a tree, but happening just then to 
meet a native with a train, we concluded a hasty bar- 
gain by which he was to haul our boat over to the sta- 



346 DUCK SHOOTING. 

tion for the sum of one dollar, the roads being, as he 
said, powerful bad. 

Virgil started ahead with all the ducks he could carry 
and I followed with the rest, together with the guns 
and coats. At the station we were the wonder of all 
observers, there appearing to be a general desire to see 
"the two fools who had come all the way from Metz 
right in the dead of winter." We reached home in 
good season, having made the round trip in one day. 
That night we divided up with several families, and the 
next day some of our game appeared upon tables where 
possibly ducks were rarely seen. 

This hunt, we thought, paid us well, not so much in 
the game as in that we felt that we had surprised Na- 
ture in a new mood, one which she had gotten up for 
herself and intended no one else should see. It was 
audacious in us to tempt her in such a mood ; but in the 
memories of the day our audacity was rewarded. 

From still another section, and of another season, 
is the account which follows, also taken from Forest 
and Stream: 

The air is damp with a heavy fog that has settled 
low upon the earth, the long grass hanging over the 
narrow road being as wet as from a rain. The birds 
are not yet awake. Even that early riser, the thrush, 
has not opened his eyes. We tread, single file, the 
winding path that leads from the road down the wood- 
ed river bank to the boat. 

Dan takes his position in the bow. Tt is my turn at 



RIVER SHOOTING. 347 

the oars, and off she sHdes into the water. The fog 
seems to have grown denser. It is impossible to dis- 
tinguish objects over a dozen boat lengths away. Five, 
ten, fifteen minutes are tipped off by the dip of the oars ; 
still the fog hangs about us like a thick veil, denying 
even a glimpse of the shore for which we were steering. 

"Say, old man, how's this?" cries Jim, pointing to 
a stake we have almost collided with. I feel much pro- 
voked, for I recognize our starting point. We have 
made a circuit. Jim produces a small compass attached 
to a watch-chain ; we take our bearings carefully and 
try again. This time the trees come out of the fog to 
meet us, for we have made the opposite shore. The boat 
glides on just out of reach of the overhanging bushes. 
A great blue crane flops out of a tree above us, and, 
with a harsh cry that startles Dan, disappears in the 
fog. 

Easy now. Here is the narrow stream leading up 
through the marsh. We change positions, Jim moving 
up to the bow with his gun. while I settle in the stern 
to paddle. The first bend, and no ducks. The stream 
now is scarcely wider than the boat. Water bushes are 
bent aside to enable us to pass, taking care not to dis- 
turb an ugly-looking wasp nest with its wicked owners 
asleep on the outside. I give the boat a shove around 
the next turn. Up rise several ducks. Bang! bang! 
goes Jim's gun. A clean miss with the first barrel, 
but the second drops its victim all in a heap, as limp as 
a wet dish-rag. Another comes out of the wild rice at 
my very elbow. The paddle slips into the water as I 



348. DUCK SHOOTING. 

reacli for my gun, and down comes the duck with a 
splash. Dan is overboard attending to business, and 
quickly retrieves the birds. Nice fat fellows they are. 
Here comes a straggler returning through the mist. 
Jim has his eye upon him and makes a very creditable 
kill. Dan splashes off through the weeds .:.nd water 
and retrieves, with the duck held firmly in his mouth. 
He climbs into the boat, and wnth muddy feet and drip- 
ping hide carefully squats upon the middle seat, where 
somebody wall have to sit at the oars. Dan never neg- 
lected to place one or more of his feet on that seat 
every time he entered the boat, provided they were wet 
or muddy. Jim and 1 argued with him earnestly and 
often against this weakness, and now and then with 
the broad end of the paddle, but all to no purpose. So 
after a bit I would laugh when it came Jim's time to 
occupy the muddy seat, and Jim would giggle wdien I 
had to make a blotter of myself. 

Back down the stream we turn to the left and add 
another duck to our string. The fog is lifting now, a 
light breeze swaying the rice and cat-tails. The black- 
birds are awake, chattering over their breakfast and 
making sociable visits from one flock to another. Clear 
as a tinkling bell comes the pink-pink of the reed birds. 
A tall crane stands out in the water across the creek, 
foraging for his morning lunch. I produce my pipe 
and light up, while Jim makes himself useful at the 
oars. Half a mile up the creek we strike the mouth of 
another stream that zig-zags across the marsh. I take 
the post of honor this time. We are not fairly into the 



RIVER SHOOTING. 349 

Stream before a plump-looking duck comes out of the 
rushes, but drops back as the smoke curls away from 
my gun. Quiet now, for a loud word would frighten 
the ducks that are probably feeding under that clump 
of water bushes ahead, whereas often they will not 
take wing at the report of a gun unless very near them. 
We approach with great caution, for this is one of our 
favorite spots, though the ducks have a trick of going 
out on the wrong side of the bushes — undoubtedly the 
right side for them, the bushes being so high that the 
ducks are out of range before they show above them. 

This time we try a new dodge on the feathered inno- 
cents. Jim steps out upon the marsh while I proceed 
with the boat. If they only come this way, well and 
good. But, no ; the fates are against us. Out they go 
as the boat jars the bushes, but further up than usual, 
and only one, most likely a youngster, falls a victim by 
separating from the flock. 

We have time for one more stream ere the tide low- 
ers. I give Jim the bow, and tell him to shoot straight 
and take his time about it, for this is the boss stream 
of the creek. He stands up in the narrow bow ready 
for action, the hammers of his gun lying back like 
the ears of a horse about to bite. That rascal, Dan, is 
on the seat again ; but this is not the place or time to 
rebuke him. for the stream is deep and the boat un- 
steady. I paddle noiselessly around the bend. The 
expectation becomes almost painful. With fluttering 
of wings, up rise two beauties. Jim swings his gun and 
leans to one side. Dan thinks it a good time to get off 



350 DUCK SHOOTING. 

that seat, and does it so expeditiously that with the 
report of the gun both Jim and the ducks disappear, he 
having lost his balance by the recoil of the gun and 
Dan's untimely move. He clutches frantically at the 
air, l)ut it avails him not. There is a resounding 
sjilash, and Jim's feet are hanging on the edge of the 
l)oat, while his body is in the water. He holds the gun 
at arm's length above the water, the muzzle wobbling 
suggestively in a line with my head, as he endeavors 
to dislodge his feet. I think, "Good Lord, if he should 
pull that trigger!" and forget to offer him any assist- 
ance in my anxiety to get out of range of that gun bar- 
rel. But in less time than it has taken to tell it. Jim is 
on his feet in water up to his middle, indulging in such 
roars of laughter as to nearly frighten the ducks into 
spasms, and sending them scurrying out of the creek 
as if the devil himself was chasing them. You may be 
sure I laughed with him. It makes me smile to this 
day when I think of Jim hanging by his heels, head 
down, in that little creek. 

This mishap spoiled our shooting, but we succeeded 
in stopping a couple of ducks as they passed out. Put- 
ting up a small sail, we sped down the Chipoax and 
Lome, fairly well satisfied with our bag of seven ducks. 

To me, Chipoax Creek was a joy forever, and really 
possessed no mean beauties when viewed at high water. 
It sweeps in graceful curves through the green marsh, 
its course as crooked as a blacksnake's track, now run- 
ning under a steep bank from which the trees reach 
down their branches as if to drink, and further on, its 



IN THE WILD RICE FIELDS. 351 

waters playing about the trunks of huge cypress trees 
standing well out from the shore. But when the tide 
went out, how marked the change! I have seen the 
very walls of its muddy channel laid bare, while on 
either side great, gray, slimy flats come out of the 
water, their glistening surface broken here and there 
with decaying snags and dotted with little patches of 
tangled grass. But it is not my desire, O Chipoax ! to 
revile you because your waters leave you uncovered, 
for many is the time that you have floated my boat and 
offered up your treasures with unstinted hand. Long 
may your tides flow in and out and your channel re- 
main unchoked by debris of the sea. 



IN THE WILD RICE FIELDS. 

Scattered over the northern country, between the 
Hudson River and the Missouri, are many thousands 
of reedy swamps and shallow lakes, and great stretches 
of wet meadow-land, where the wild rice grows. In 
the spring, so soon as the water is warmed by the genial 
rays of the advancing sun, the tiny pale green spears 
show themselves above its surface, and, all through 
the hot summer, grow taller and stouter, until, when 
August comes, the tasseled heads begin to bow with the 
weight of the flowers, and, a little later, the soft, milky 
grain appears in a waving crop. In the good old times, 
before the white man's foot had explored every recess 
of our land, or his plough furrowed every prairie, or 



352 DUCK SHOOTING. 

"his crooked gray fences disfigured each landscape, 
these rice fields were the homes of innumerable wild 
■creatures. 

On their borders the herons built their nests, and in 
the open waters, among the stalks, they did their fish- 
ing. In and out among the stems, the wild ducks and 
grebes swam in daily journeyings, while the rails and 
the coots ran or waded or climbed among the stalks, 
undisturbed. Here the muskrat had his home, living, 
in the summer, perhaps, in a hole on some higher piece 
of ground, and, in winter, building for himself, from 
the reeds and the stems of the rice, a house, solid, sub- 
stantial, and impervious to the cold. Here, too, lived 
the mink, taking his daily toll of fish or frogs from the 
water, sometimes killing the muskrat, and, now and 
then, feasting greedily on the eggs or the young of 
some bird, whose nest he had despoiled. 

Among the rice or the reeds, the blackbirds built 
their hanging nests of grass, supported by three or four 
natural columns, and all through the heat of the June 
days the mother bird brooded her pale blue, black- 
streaked eggs, swinging easily to the movement of the 
rice stems, like the sailor in his hammock at sea. More 
solid and substantial were the houses built by the 
marsh wrens ; round balls of grass, deftly woven about 
a stalk of the rice, roofed over as well as floored, and 
with only a narrow hole for the passage in and out of 
the tiny owner. Sometimes a single pair built half a 
dozen of these nests, near one another, before making a 
habitation that pleased them, and those that they had 



IN THE WILD RICE FIELDS. 353 

left were taken by the bumblebees for homes in which 
to do their housekeeping-. 

Rarely, in such marshes, might be found the nest of 
the great gray goose ; the female brooding her eggs on 
a solid nest placed on a foundation of reeds and grass, 
the faithful gander not far from his mate, ready, at an 
instant's warning, to fight bravely in her defense, 
should prowling fox, or coon, or wolf, approach his 
home. Then, after the yellow goslings were hatched, 
the pair led them, by well-known paths, hither and 
thither through the rice fields, telling them where the 
best food was to be found, where danger might lurk, 
and teaching them how to live their lives. 

But it was when autumn came, and the ripened 
grain, loose now in its husks, began, as the breezes 
blew, to drop down into the water below, that the 
greatest accessions came to the life of the wild rice 
fields. Now, from the north, singly and by tens, and 
hundreds, and thousands, came flying the hordes of 
waterfowl which had been hatched and reared toward 
the borders of the Arctic Sea. Their numbers were 
beyond belief, and such as no man of the present day 
can hope to see again. 

Flock after flock, they came dropping down into the 
marsh, until the open spots were crowded with their 
dark bodies, and from the concealment of the reeds, 
where no water could be seen, tumultuous clamorings 
told of other thousands hidden there. In those days, 
when ducks were food for the infrequent dwellers of 
those regions, the single discharge of a gun would sup- 



354 DUCK SHOOTING. 

ply the hunter with birds enough for several days ; 
then, no one thought of shooting ducks or geese, ex- 
cept to eat, and, indeed, ammunition was often far too 
valuable to be wasted on birds. Indians have told me 
that, when camped on the borders of the wild rice lakes 
of Minnesota and Manitoba, it was their common prac- 
tice to enter the water, and, fixing a chaplet of grass or 
rushes about the head, to wade very slowly close to the 
flocks of unsuspecting fowl, and, seizing them by the 
feet, to draw them, one by one, beneath the water, until 
enough birds had been obtained to satisfy their wants. 

To such lakes and sloughs, where the birds regularly 
came to feed on their migration, the gunners of years 
ago used to resort, and, taking their station on some 
point of land, or on a muskrat house, or in a boat con- 
cealed in reeds, to have, without the use of decoys, such 
shooting as to-day is hardly dreamt of. 

]\Iuch further to the west, in the arid region, now 
and then a marsh is found, where reeds and tall tas- 
seled grass, somewhat resembling the wild rice, grow, 
and, during the migration, unusually good shooting 
may be had in just this way. Much of this is almost 
precisely like pass shooting, and, unless the gunner has 
had considerable practice, he is likely to make bad work 
of it. Shooting such as this taxes the skill to the ut- 
most. It is as different as possible from shooting over 
decoys, where, commonly, the birds, preparing to 
alight, check their flight, and give opportunity for de- 
liberate work. But these birds darting into the wild 
rice fields are, almost all of them, going as fast as they 



IN THE WILD RICE FIELDS. 355 

can fly. The shooting must be quick, yet the man who 
flatters himself that he is a quick shot in the brush will 
miss almost all his birds. There is required, for suc- 
cess, a mingling of quickness and deliberation, and a 
knowledge of how to hold on the ducks, which is only to 
be attained by much practice. As a rule, those birds 
which, when alarmed, strive to rise straight up in the 
air, like the mallard, the black duck, the w^idgeon and 
the teals, are more easily killed than straight-flying 
birds, such as canvas-backs, redheads and bluebills, 
which, no matter what they may see to alarm them, do 
not alter their course, but merely fly the faster. The 
bird which checks its onward flight and tries to rise 
higher — which flares, as it is termed — can be overtaken 
and passed by the muzzle of the gun, which is not al- 
ways the case with the darting, diving ducks. 

A gunner of great experience, whose advice is well 
worth taking, and who is very skillful at these swift- 
flying overhead birds, states that, rising to his feet well 
before the bird gets to him, he aims at the point of the 
bill, and, following the bird until it is nearly, but not 
quite, above him, he then moves the gun a little for- 
ward and pulls the trigger. The bags which this man 
makes confirm his statement that this is a good way to 
hold on these overhead birds. 

A stirring account of the abundance of the wildfowl 
in the wald rice fields of the West, thirty years ago, is 
given in an article from the graphic pen of Mr. T. S. 
Van Dyke, contributed a dozen years ago to the col- 
umns of Forest and Stream, from which the paragraphs 



3S6 DUCK SHOOTING. 

given below are taken. To the gunners of the present 
day, this picture may seem too vivid and highly col- 
ored, but many men have seen flights of fowl as great, 
and can confirm Mr. Van Dyke's account, if such con- 
firmation were needed. This is the story, as he tells it 
— a story of the last days of the muzzle-loading shot- 
gun : 

It was a bright September afternoon, the day after 
my arrival at Henry, that my friend and I were pad- 
dling up the crooked slough that leads from Senach- 
wine to the Illinois River. Wood ducks, mallards and 
teal rose squealing and quacking from the slough ahead 
of us. but he paid no attention to them, and I soon 
ceased dropping the oar and snatching up the gun and 
getting it cocked and raised just as the ducks were 
nicely out of range. When we reached Mud Lake — a 
mere widening and branching of the slough at the foot 
of Senachwine — we drew the boat ashore. Huge flocks 
of mallards rose with reverberating wings from the 
sloughs all around us and mounted high, with the sun 
brightly glancing from every plume. Plainly could I 
see the sheen of their burnished green heads and out- 
stretched necks, the glistening bars upon their wings, 
the band of white upon their tails, surmounted by 
dainty curls of shining green. 

There were already in sight what seemed to me 
enough of ducks to satisfy any one. Long lines of 
black dots streamed along the blue sky above Senach- 
wine, up the Illinois and over Swan Lake — between 
the river and Senachwine — while from down the 



IN THE WILD RICE FIELDS. 357 

slough, up the slough, from over the timber on the west, 
and the timber along the river on the east, came small 
bunches and single birds by the dozen. Shall I ever 
forget that big mallard that bore down upon me be- 
fore I was fairly hidden in the reeds? He came along 
with sublime indifference, winnowing the air with lazy 
stroke, bobbing his long, green head and neck up and 
down, and suspecting no danger. As he passed me at 
about twenty-five yards, I saw, along the iron rib of the 
gun. the sunlight glisten on his burnished head. I was 
delightfully calm, and rather regretted that letting him 
down was such a merely formal proceeding. If he 
were further off, or going faster, it would be so much 
more satisfactory. Nevertheless, he had to be bagged, 
whether skill was required or not, so I resigned myself 
to the necessity and pulled the trigger. The duck rose 
skyward with thumping wings, leaving me so be- 
numbed with wonder that I never thought of the other 
barrel. 

But little time was left me for reflection, for a wood 
duck, resplendent with all his gorgeous colors, came 
swiftly down from the other direction. Every line of 
his brilliant plumage I could also plainly see along the 
gun, for I was as cool as before. Yet this gay rover of 
the air never condescended to fall, sheer, rise, or even 
quicken his pace, but sailed along at the report of each 
barrel as unconcerned as a gossamer web on the even- 
ing breeze. 

I concluded to retire from the business of single 
shots and sfo into the wholesale trade. This conclusion 



358 DUCK SHOOTING. 

was firmly braced by the arrival of fifteen or twenty 
mallards in a well-massed flock. They came past me 
like a charge of cavalry, sweeping in bright uniform 
low^ along the water, with shining necks and heads pro- 
jecting like couched lances. 1 could see four or five 
heads almost in line as I pulled the first trigger, yet 
only one dropped, and that one with only a broken 
wing. As they rose with obstreperous beat of wing, I 
rained the second barrel into the thickest part of the 
climbing mass, and another one fell with a broken 
wing, while another wabbled and wavered for a hun- 
dred yards or more, then rose high and hung in air for 
a second, then, folding his wings, descended into a 
heavy mass of reeds away on the other side of the main 
slough. Meanwhile, my tw^o wounded ducks, both flat- 
tened out on the water, were making rapid time for the 
thick reeds across the little slough, and both disap- 
peared in them just as I got one barrel of my gun 
capped. 

So it went on for an hour or so. There was scarcely 
a minute to w^ait for a shot, yet in that hour I bagged 
only four or five ducks. 

While gazing a moment into the blank that de- 
spondency often brings before me, two blue-winged 
teal shot suddenly across the void. With the instinct- 
ive quickness of one trained to brush shooting, I tossed 
the gun forward of the leading teal about the same 
space that I had been accustomed to fire ahead of quail 
at that apparent distance. The rear duck, fully four 
feet behind the other, skipped with a splash over the 



IN THE WILD RICE FIELDS. 359 

water, dead, while the one I had intended to hit 
skimmed away unharmed. I had fahen into the com- 
mon error of tyros at duck shooting, viz., underesti- 
mating both the distance and speed of the game. 

Some of my friends, who had never been west of 
the Alleghanies, had often said that there was no sport 
in duck shooting ; that it took no skill to stop a clumsy 
duck in clear, open space, and that the duck was not a 
game bird, anyhow, etc. How I wished for the pres- 
ence of some of those friends that evening as old Phoe- 
bus entered upon the home stretch and his glowing 
chariot neared the gate of gilded clouds. The number 
of ducks increased by the minute. They came with 
swifter and steadier wing and with more of an air of 
business than they had shown before. Those hitherto 
flying were nearly all ducks that had been spending the 
day in and around Senachwine and its adjacent ponds 
and sloughs. But now the host that during the day had 
been feeding in the great corn fields of the prairie be- 
gan to move in to roost, and the vast army of traveling 
wildfowl that the late sharp frosts in the North had 
started on their southern tour began to get under way. 
Long lines now came streaming down the northern sky, 
widening out and descending in long inclines or long, 
sweeping curves. Dense bunches came rising out of 
the horizon, hanging for a moment on the glowing 
sky, then massing and bearing directly down upon us. 
No longer as single spies, but in battalions, they poured 
over the bluffs on the west, where the land sweeps away 
into the vast expanse of high prairie, and on wings 



360 DUCK SHOOTING. 

swifter than the wind itself came riding down the last 
beams of the sinking sun. Above them the air was dot- 
ted with long, wedge-shaped masses or converging 
strings, more slowly moving than the ducks, from which 
I could soon hear the deep, mellow honk of the goose 
and the clamorous cackle of the brant. And through 
all this were darting here and there and everywhere, 
ducks, single, in pairs and small bunches. English 
snipe were pitching about in their erratic flight ; plover 
drifted by with their tender whistle, little alarmed by 
the cannonade ; blue herons, bitterns and snowy egrets, 
with long necks doubled up and legs outstretched be- 
hind, flapped solemnly across the stage, while yellow- 
legs, sand snipe, mud hens, divers — I know not what 
all — chinked in the vacant places. 

When I shot the last one of the two teal ducks in- 
stead of his leader, I thought that I had discovered the 
art of missing, and fondly imagined that the skill I had 
acquired by shooting in brush would now show my 
friend Everett something worthy of his notice. How 
the bright bloom of that youthful conceit wilted under 
the fire that now consumed my internal economy ! The 
nerves that felt but a slight tremor when the ruffed 
grouse burst roaring from the thicket, now quaked like 
aspens beneath the storm that swept over me from 
every point of the compass. There I stood, the con- 
verging point of innumerable dark lines, bunches and 
strings, all rushing toward me, at different rates of 
speed, indeed, but even the slowest fearfully fast. 
There I stood bothering w^ith a muzzle-loader, loading 



IN THE WILD RICE FIELDS. 361 

it with trembling hands, fever heat and headache from 
its recoil under the heavy charges I was vainly pouring 
into it, with the last duck that had fallen swimming 
away only wounded, half afraid to reshoot it because 
my ammunition was getting exhausted, yet knowing 
that it would surely get away if I did not reshoot it ; 
painfully conscious, too. that my chances of hitting a 
well duck w^ere fragile compared with the certainty of a 
shot at the cripple ; there I stood, delighted yet bewil- 
dered, ecstatic yet miserable. 

Never did Nature make a fitter background for such 
a display as appeared when twilight sank over the 
earth. The sky was one of those rare autumnal skies, 
on which light is shattered into a hundred tints, when, 
above the horizon, all is clear-cut in sharp outline, and 
over all below it lies a pallid glow that intensifies all 
brilliant colors, but throws a weird, sepulchral gloom 
upon all sombre shades. From the departed sun a 
broad, rosy light radiated far awny into the zenith, 
while the clear sky on the east was changed by the con- 
trast into pale gold tinged with faded green. North 
and south, the deep blue changed into delicate olive 
tints, shading into orange toward the centre of the 
great dome. On the west were cloud-banks of rich 
umber, fringed with crimson fire; on the east, long 
banks of coppery gold, and aloft long, fleecy streams 
of pale, lemon-colored vapor. Over such a stage now 
suddenly poured a troop of actors, that made the won- 
ders of half an .hour — aye, ten, five minutes ago — seem 
a mere puppet show. 



362 DUCK SHOOTING. 

Hitherto the ducks had all come from the level of 
the horizon. But now, from on high, with a rushing, 
tearing sound, as if rending in their passage the canopy 
of heaven, down they came out of the very face of 
night. With wings set in rigid curves, dense masses of 
bluebills came winding swiftly down. Mallards, too, 
no longer with heavy beat, but with stiffened wings 
that made it hiss beneath them, rode down the darken- 
ing air. Sprigtails and other large ducks came sliding 
down on long inclines with firmly set wings that made 
all sing beneath them. Blue- winged teal came swiftly 
and straight as flights of falling arrows, while green- 
wings shot by in volleys or pounced upon the scene with 
the rush of a hungry hawk. In untold numbers the 
old gray goose, too, came trooping in, though few came 
near enough to give us a fair shot. Nearly all of them 
steered high along the sky until over Senachwine Lake, 
or Swan Lake — a little below us to the northwest — 
then, lengthening out their dark strings, they descend- 
ed slowly and softly in long spiral curves to the bosom 
of the lake. Brant, too, dotted the western and north- 
ern skies, marching along with swifter stroke of wing 
and more clamorous throats, until over the water's 
edge, then slowly sailing and lowering for a few hun- 
dred feet in solemji silence, suddenly resumed their 
cackle, and, like a thousand shingles tossed from a bal- 
loon, went whirling, pitching, tumbling and gyrating 
down to the middle of the lake. Far, far above all these, 
and still bathed in the crimson glow of the fallen sun, 
long- lines of sandhill cranes floated like flocks of down 



IN THE WILD RICE FIELDS. 363 

in their southward flight, not deigning to ahght, but 
down through a mile of air sending their greeting in 
long-drawn, penetrating notes. 

Myriads of ducks and geese, traveling from the 
north, swept by, far overhead, without slackening a 
wing. Far above us, the mallard's neck and head, look- 
ing fairly black in the falling night, could be seen out- 
stretched for another hundred miles before dark. 
"Darkly painted on the crimson sky," the sprigtails 
streamed along with forked rudders set for a warmer 
region than Senachwine. Widgeon sent down a plain- 
tive whistle that plainly said good-bye. Bluebills, wood 
ducks, spoonbills and teal sped along the upper sky with 
scarcely a glance at their brethren who chose to de- 
scend among them. And far over all, with swifter 
flight and more rapid stroke of wing than I had 
deemed possible for birds so large, a flock of snowy 
swans clove the thickening shades, as if intending to 
sup in Kentucky instead of Illinois. 

Yet, of those that tarried, there were enough for me. 
With tremulous hand, I poured my last charge into the 
heated gun, and raised it at a flock of mallards that 
were gliding swiftly downward, with every long neck 
pointed directly at my devoted head. Whccooo shot a 
volley of green-wings between the mallards and the 
gun ; ksssss came a mob of blue-wings by my head as 1 
involuntarily shifted the gun toward the green-wings; 
zviff, zviff, wiif, came a score of mallards along the reed 
tops behind me, as, completely befuddled with the whirl 
and uproar, I foolishly shifted the gun to the blue- 



364 DUCK SHOOTING. 

wings. As I wheeled at these last mallards, after mak- 
ing a half shift of the gun toward the blue-wings, they 
saw me, and turned suddenly ui)ward, belaboring the 
air with heavy strokes, and just as I turned the gun 
upon them a mass of bluebills, with the sound like the 
tearing of forty yards of strong muslin, came in be- 
tween, and just behind me I heard the air throb be- 
neath the wings of the mallards I had first intended to 
shoot at. The gun wabbled from the second mallards 
to the bluebills, and then around to the mallards behind 
me — each chance looking more tempting than the last 
— and finally went off in the vacancy just over my head 
that the mallards had filled when I raised it. 

You who think you know all about duck shooting, if 
you have never been in such a position, have something 
yet to learn. Excitement and success you may enjoy 
to the full, but while your ammunition lasts you know 
nothing of the pleasures of contemplation. Amid the 
shock, and jar, and smoke, the confusion of even load- 
ing the quickest breech-loader, and retrieving the ducks 
even with the best of dogs, you see nothing compared 
to what you may see without a gun. As I dropped the 
worthless gun upon a muskrat house, and sat down 
upon top of it, the whole world where I had been liv- 
ing vanished in a twinkling, and I found myself in 
another sphere, filled with circling spirits, all endowed 
with emotions, hopes and fears, like those that Dante 
saw in Paradise. 

There, indeed, was the great sea of being, but all 
one vast whirlpool that engulfed the soul of the poor 



m THE WILD RICE FIELDS. 365 

powderless "tenderfoot," while his ears were stunned 
with the whizz and rush of wings all around his head, 
with the thump and bustle and splash of ducks alight- 
ing in the water before him, the squeal of wood ducks, 
the quack of mallards, the whistle of widgeon, the 
scape of traveling snipe, the grating squawk of herons, 
egrets and bitterns, the honk-honk of geese, the clank- 
a-lank of brant, and the dolorous grrrroooo of the far- 
off sandhill cranes. 

Such was the effect that these myriads of birds had 
on the young fellow, inexperienced in duck shooting, 
who was then first introduced to the sport ; yet it was 
but a short time before he became as skillful in stop- 
ping the on-rushing birds as those who had been at it 
much longer, and these are some of the pictures that 
he paints of his autumn spent along the Illinois River : 

Though ducks in the West do not come to decoys 
in the autumn as well as they do in the spring, there 
are still many days when they come c[uite well, espe- 
cially wood ducks, teal and bluebills. Many a time 
during the middle of the day we pulled the boat into a 
blind of reeds and willows, and set out decoys in the 
open water a few yards outside the brush, and many a 
time did I have to drop the roasted snipe or pumpkin 
pie and snatch up a gun as the air began to sing be- 
neath descending wings. And many a time, when 
yielding to the soporific influence of a heavy lunch on a 
soft Indian summer day, did I suddenly start from the 



366 DUCK SHOOTING. 

land of Nod just in time to hear my comrade's gun 
from the other end of the boat, to see two or three 
ducks come whirling- and splashing below, while the 
rest of the flock were towering nicely skyward just as I 
got hold of a gun. 

What camp-fires roared along the Illinois in those 
days ! It saddens me to think that such days may come 
no more for me. Driftwood piled as high as we could 
throw it, shot a glare across the river until the dead 
cottonwoods upon the other side looked like imploring 
ghosts with arms stretched heavenward, and we could 
almost see the white collars on the necks of the geese 
that passed high above us. Bunches of mallards, wood 
ducks, sprigtails. etc., hung around the fire, with every 
color glowing brightly as in the evening sun, and 
naught was needed save a string of trout or a deer to 
make the scene complete. Cold, and all other jars that 
shiver this mortal crockery, were banished there, and 
all thought of the whole outside world went whirling 
away into the vortex of flame and sparks that streamed 
skyward through the tree-tops. Little did I hear of the 
song or jest or the laughter that almost woke the 
echoes from the eastern bluffs. For by some strange 
principle of suggestion, some mysterious mental con- 
nection, the whole outer circle of darkness was to me a 
picture gallery upon which I could lie and gaze by the 
hour. The walls of that dark rotunda beyond the fire 
were for me full hung with the brightest scenes of the 
new life I had entered, and they drew with them by as- 
sociation all those that I had passed through before. 



IN THE WILD RICE FIELDS. 367 

There, again, was the bright sky, swept by long strings 
of whizzing hfe, widening out and streaming toward 
me in swift descent ; and by its side was the old dog, 
rolling with happy gallop over the buckwheat stubble, 
slackening into a cat-like tread as he swings to leeward 
of the clump of brush in the corner of the field, stiffen- 
ing into rigid faith as he crawls under the fence and 
enters the tangled woods beyond. There, again, was 
the stately mallard, or more gorgeous wood duck, re- 
laxing his hold on air and falling a whirl of brilliant 
colors, or the wary old goose, with drooping neck and 
folded wing, coming to earth with impetuous crash ; 
and by their side the catbrier brake or hemlock-clad 
slopes, where the wintergreen fills the air with its fra- 
grance, while the ruffed grouse shoots like a shaft of 
light among the dark ranks of tree trunks. And bright 
among them all were those autumn days, when the 
bloody sun struggles down through smoky air, and the 
whistle of the woodcock's wing in the sapling grove 
sends through the heart a more tender thrill than ever. 
Succeeding years have hung many a new picture in the 
dark rotunda that surrounds the camp-fire ; but none of 
them, in all the freshness of youth, shines with more 
brilliancy than still through the mist of years shine 
those around the camp-fires on the Illinois. 

Though the morning flight of ducks is often very 
heavy, it generally lacks that tumultuous intensity of 
presence that characterizes the evening flight. Begin- 
ning with the first gray of morning, when a lonely mal- 
lard, perhaps, comes winging his way slowly out of the 



368 DUCK SHOOTING. 

circle of darkness around you, crosses the open sky 
a])()ve in dim outline, doubles up at the report of your 
gun, and sinks at your feet with a sullen whop, the 
flight increases with every new beam of light that strug- 
gles through the misty morning. They fall no longer 
from alxjve, as in the evening, and stream in from every 
other quarter of the horizon about as much as from the 
north. There is less rush and bustle, but they move 
with steadier march. They are not shot by you in vol- 
leys like projectiles from some uncontrollable impulse, 
but they move with more majestic sweep and more as 
if they had some inkling of what they were about. At 
the first report of your gun the air throbs beneath the 
beat of thousands of wings, and a wild medley of ener- 
getic quacks, dolorous squeals, melodious honkings and 
discordant cackling, as the myriads of ducks, geese and 
brant still roostirig in the ponds rise in a clamorous 
mob. Again, for a few moments the tyro may lose his 
wits as the vast horde breaks into a hundred divisions, 
each circling perhaps a dozen times through the light- 
ening sky and streaming over his head without remem- 
l)ering or caring' that it was from that spot that the fire 
just spouted skyward. As the fire again leaps upward, 
the circle of sky overhead is cleared for an instant, as 
the ducks sheer and climb the air out of danger's reach ; 
but in another moment it is thronged again with rush- 
ing wings. Beware, now, how you waste your fire upon 
this flock of teal just emerging into the gray, for you 
can hear the mallard's heavy wings, a hundred strong, 
beatins; the dark air close behind them. Beware how 



IN THE WILD RICE FIELDS. 369 

you waste your fire even upon the mallards, for upon 
the right the deep-toned honk of the goose sounds most 
thrillingly near. But, alas ! how can the tyro reason 
calmly when the hiss of a sailing flock of mallards is 
heard just behind his head before his premises are 
thought of, and his conclusion is rudely hastened by a 
deep, dark line of bluebills pouring out of the remnant 
of the night upon his left ? 

This lasts, however, but a few minutes. As soon 
as dawn has fairly begun, the wildfowl travel wider and 
higher; you must keep yourself well concealed and do 
your very best shooting. For an hour or two, and often 
longer, the flight may be strong and steady, and then it 
will shade gradually off until you may find yourself 
waiting fifteen minutes for a shot. The evening flight 
rises by rapid steps to an overpowering climax, while 
the morning flight tapers away into all the flatness of 
the anti-climax. 

One scarcely needs to be told that neither the morn- 
ing nor evening flight is always during duck season 
such as I have described it. There are days when ducks 
will not fly as they will on other days, though they still 
throng both lake and slough in myriads. At such times 
the flight of those that do move is more over the face of 
the water than elsewhere, and then I have had rare 
sport from a big barrel sunk almost to the edge in the 
mud and water of Swan Lake, a little below the foot of 
Senachwine. Through a fringe of reeds around the 
edge of that barrel I have watched great flocks of mal- 
lards skim low along the water, until the long, green 



370 DUCK SHOOTING. 

necks glistened within ten yards of the barrel. Then, 
as I suddenly rose to my feet, what a glorious medley 
of flashing bars on terrified wings, of shiny cinnamon 
breasts, white-banded tails, with curls of burnished 
green, red legs and beaded eyes, rose whirling and 
quacking upward ! There, too, I have watched the 
geese winding slowly down out of the blue sky until 
near the centre of the lake, then, with set and silent 
wing, and every honking throat hushed as if in death, 
every neck and head immovable, drift slowly along a 
few feet above the water, until, as close as the corner 
of the ceiling where I sit writing, I could see their eyes 
sparkle in the sunlight. And then what an uproarious 
iviff, zviff, wiff of sheeri/xg wings, what a Jionk-wonk- 
onk-kivonk, and what a confusion of white collars and 
black necks, of gray wings and swarthy feet, would 
crowd upon my eye as I rose and looked along the gun ! 
Tt is sad to think that such scenes are fading fast 
into the things that were. There are, perhaps, parts of 
our country where the scenes of Senachwine twenty 
years ago are still repeated. But it may be doubted if 
they are repeated on so grand and varied a scale ; and, 
even if they are, it will not be for long. The increasing 
interest in game protection will preserve many kinds of 
game to such an extent that our children's children may 
see shooting of some kind better than we now see. But 
no legislation can recall from the past the mighty 
hordes of wildfowl that once darkened the waters of 
the West, that dotted its skies and made its cornfields 
alive with roaring wings. Nor can any public senti- 



IN THE WILD RICE FIELDS. 37 1 

ment, whether expressed in law or not, bring back the 
primeval solitude of those swamps and river bottoms 
which was such an important condition in such scenes 
as I have described. Those vast stretches of timber, 
broken only by ponds and their margins of mud and 
reeds, or by the long lines of the winding sloughs, those 
wide reaches of open land covered with wavy grass or 
reeds, cut with sloughs or broken by rush-fringed ponds 
of acres and acres in extent, over all of which one could 
see no sign of civilization save an occasional road, and 
hear none of the sounds of progress, save once in a 
while the far-off puff of the high-pressure steamer that 
was trailing its sooty banner along the distant sky, can 
never be restored. 



CORNFIELD SHOOTING IN THE MIDDLE WEST. 

In the fall of the year, after the crops have been gath- 
ered, and when the migrating birds begin to make their 
appearance, they resort to the cornfields to feed on the 
grain scattered about on the ground. 

When harvesting the corn crop in Illinois it is the 
practice to drive a wagon through the field, and to pull 
the ears from the standing stalks and toss them into the 
wagon. Now and then an ear falls on the ground be- 
neath the wagon and is not picked up, or strikes some 
portion of the wood or iron and knocks off a few grains, 
or a little loose corn sifts out through the bottom of the 
wagon box. This loose corn lying about, attracts the 



372 DUCK SHOOTING. 

birds, and both ducks and geese come to such fields to 
feed. Often, while gathering the corn, the men will 
see a flock of ducks fly into the field, and after making 
a circle or two, alight perhaps in some little pool of 
water in a low spot. Very likely the gun is standing 
ready in the wagon, and one of the men takes it, and 
having lined down the birds, creeps close enough to 
them to get a pot shot as they are sitting on the water. 
Or, if the harvest has been gathered, and it is seen that 
the birds are regularly coming into the fields, the gun- 
ners may go out and lie down on the ground near the 
feeding places of the birds, and perhaps get a number 
of shots in a morning. Such shooting, however, is 
merely incidental — the picking up of a few birds when 
the opportunity occurs. 

It is after the weather begins to get cool, when the 
little ponds and sloughs are frozen over, so that the 
ducks can no longer feed in the shallow water at their 
margins, that they seem most anxious to get into the 
cornfields. Often they will come in great numbers, 
from distant open waters, and for a time will give sur- 
prisingly good shooting. A few years ago, when birds 
were much more plenty than they are now, great 
bags were often made in such situations. 

In the pools which occur in almost every field, decoys 
are often used. Very frequently wild ducks' nests are 
found and che eggs taken and set under a hen, so that 
sometimes the whole brood is reared. These in turn 
breed the next year, and so a race of more or less do- 
mesticated ducks is established. Sometimes the birds 



CORNFIELD SHOOTING. 373 

of the first hatching go away in the autumn, migrating 
with the wild birds, and return again next spring to 
their northern home, apparently without having lost 
much of their tameness. If no decoys are to be had, 
the gunners call with the voice, or use duck calls. 

Usually, even though no decoys are out. the ducks, 
in circling about over the cornfields before alighting, 
pass over the wet places to examine them, and so some 
shots are hado As soon as a duck is killed, the gunner, 
breaking off a stiff weed stalk, places the duck in the 
water, thrusts the stalk through the skin of the neck, 
and, pressing the other end into the mud, makes a life- 
like decoy. Other ducks coming in, see the decoys and 
come down to them. 

The birds killed are at first chiefly mallards, but 
later in the season the brant come into the cornfield, 
though they generally alight where the corn grows 
small, so that they can see over it pretty well. The 
brant shooting in the cornfields is chiefly practiced in 
spring. The brant come along late in the spring, after 
the mallards have gone, arriving usually in great flocks, 
and alight in the middle of the big field. Sometimes 
these fields contain i6o acres — a whole quarter section, 
and as by spring the corn stalks have all been cut down, 
there is really no cover. The gunners must lie down in 
the furrows between the rows of corn stubble, and, 
making themselves as small as possible, wait for the 
brant to come within shot. Often they are obliged to 
shoot lying on their backs, and when the ground is hard 
and the gun heavily charged, the shock to the shoulder 



374 DUCK SHOOTING. 

is severe. For this shooting, decoys are seldom used, 
except that occasionally the dead brant are set u]) with 
the weed stalks, as is done with the ducks. 

In this cornfield shooting, as practiced in the middle 
West — that is to say, in Illinois and Indiana, it is not 
common to dig pits in the fields. Sometimes, however, 
on the sand bars or sand points in the river, gunners 
dig holes to lie in, but this is usually for shooting the 
Canada goose, a bird esteemed much more wary and 
harder to deceive than the brant. The birds called 
brant in that country are chiefly the white-fronted or 
laughing geese, with som.e snow geese and blue geese. 
They have a peculiar cackling cry, very different from 
the sonorous note of the Canada goose. 

The shooting here described used to be practiced in 
the neighborhood of Green River and Rock River, in 
Illinois. Near the Green River was an immense marsh 
— known as St. Peter's Marsh — greatly frequented by 
ducks and affording good shooting in the season. It 
was a large tract, so wet and boggy that it was impos- 
sible for a man to walk on it. It was very soft, and 
would not support any weight. Here the birds bred 
in great quantities. In the neighboring valleys a favor- 
ite mode of shooting is to "jump" ducks. The gunner 
walks along one of the small sloughs, where the mal- 
lards breed, and from time to time flocks of eight, ten 
or a dozen spring from the water and fly off to another 
slough or pond. From each bunch that jumps up one 
or two birds may'be killed, but no attention is paid to 
those that go off ; they are never followed up. 



CORNFIELD SHOOTING. 375 

In that country the season then opened on the fif- 
teenth of August, and for two weeks there was good 
shooting at young ducks ; then on a sudden all would 
disappear, and not a duck would be found until the 
advent of cold weather. The birds moved away North, 
as it was thought, only returning when forced Soutli 
by the frost. 

In shooting in the cornfields regular blinds of corn 
stalks were not built, but near the edges of ponds it was 
quite common to stick in the soft ground two or three 
rows of stalks, and to hide behind such a blind and 
shoot the birds that came in. 

After the weather grew colder there used to be good 
shooting on the fly-ways along the sloughs, for if the 
wind was blowing hard against them the ducks flew 
low. They almost always followed the water, and 
could usually be shot from the shore. A friend tells 
me of shooting one evening, in an hour, over fifty teal. 
This was at what was known as the Big Slough ; it is 
about nineteen miles long and one mile wide, and can 
only be crossed where it is bridged. The gunners stood 
on the points running out into the slough, and had their 
shooting from there. On the evening in question my 
friend reached the slough a little late and found all the 
points taken. It was perfectly still, and there was no 
wind to drive the ducks toward the points. At one 
place there was a long sand bar, which ran out into the 
slough; my friend waded out on this to a bunch of 
rushes which grew from the water nearly in mid- 
stream, and stood there in water about breast deep. 



ly^ DUCK SHOOTING. 

When the ducks began to fly. it was seen that they were 
all teal and that they were flying pretty low. While the 
shooting lasted it was active, and he gathered fifty 
birds. Besides these, there were, no doubt, many that 
were pulled down by the turtles, which during the 
shooting season make a fat living in that region by 
pulling down dead birds and cripples that are not re- 
covered. 

In some degree this fly-way shooting resembles pass 
shooting, but differs from it in that the birds commonly 
do not pass immediately overhead, but usually fly a 
little to one side and not very high. 

Many of these small western rivers are crooked 
streams, and while as a rule the ducks follow the water, 
yet very often they cut across points ; and where they 
do this very excellent shooting is to be had. The 
"whistlers" usually follow the stream. This is a local 
name for the "black jack," or tufted duck, said to be 
abundant there. Besides mallards, the more common 
birds were the widgeon, teal, butter-balls, and rarely 
the canvas-back. 

Sometimes in that section geese and brant are hunted 
with horses ; a horse is trained to feed gradually up 
near to the flocks, and the gunner walks behind him 
until within range. , Sometimes, too, in shooting geese 
and brant, it is possible to creep down wind to within 
a hundred yards of the birds. Where this can be done 
and the birds can be approached near enough, the gun- 
ner, as soon as he' sees that the birds are becoming un- 
easy, springs to his feet and runs toward them as fast 



POINT SHOOTING. 377 

as he can. As the birds must rise against the wind, 
they will sometimes come directly toward him for 
thirty or forty yards before turning to go away ; mean- 
time, the gunner has covered a good many yards, and 
just as the birds turn may succeed in reaching them 
with his shot. 

Canada geese, white-fronted geese and snow geese 
resort to the cornfields as do the ducks, and often the 
gunner may return, after his morning shoot, with a 
very varied bag, which may perhaps even include a 
sandhill crane or two. 



POINT SHOOTING. 

No form of duck shooting is more pleasing and none 
more artistic than what is termed point shooting ; and, 
when the weather is favorable, no form offers greater 
rewards. 

The gunner's decoys float in the water, a short gun- 
shot from his blind ; the ducks flying by. see the decoys, 
and, if all the conditions are right, they are very likely 
to come in to them. 

This shooting is practiced on various waters all over 
the country, the conditions varying more or less in dif- 
ferent places. Thus, on the shores of some of the 
northern lakes and broad rivers the blind is built of 
stones laid up in the form of a wall, or, in winter, of 
blocks of ice. In the marshes of the South Atlantic 



27^ DUCK SHOOTING. 

ducking grounds stems of cane form the blind, or again 
in other places branches of trees or bushes may be used. 
In the following pages I have described the chief 
features of this form of shooting as practiced on the 
waters of Currituck Sound, in North Carolina, a re- 
gion with which I am familiar : 

The sky was overcast and black ; wind northeast, 
temperature 28° ; prospect of snow or rain during the 
day. I had eaten a good breakfast, had struggled into 
the heavy outer clothing needed on a day like this, and 
was just leaving the house when the clock struck 6. 
This was in good time, for the sun did not rise until 7, 
and it would take us less than an hour to get to our 
point. 

Down at the boathouse John was waiting in the 
skiff. Everything seemed to be there — guns, ammuni- 
tion boxes, lunch kettle, my oil clothes — while from a 
little coop under one of the thwarts came the low 
chuckle of a live duck or two to be tied out with the 
wooden decoys. 

The mast was stepped and we pushed out from the 
little dock, the wind caught the sail, the boat heeled 
over and began to glide swiftly along, with a pleasant 
ripple of water under the bow and a stronger gurgle 
under the stern. We had gone but a very short dis- 
tance when the whir of wings and a splashing on the 
water warned us that we had disturbed some ducks; 
and a little later,-vociferous quacking above the marsh 
which we were skirtinsr told of black ducks frightened 



POINT SHOOTING. 379 

from their reedy resting places. Now and then, as we 
passed close to some point of land, the boat's way was 
checked for a moment as the tall growth of canes cut 
off the wind and the vessel resumed an even keel, while 
the sail for a moment shook in the still air. Again, 
when the point was passed and the breeze was felt once 
more, the skiff heeled over and darted forward like a 
good horse touched with the spur. 

Already the sky was beginning to grow light in the 
east when we heard before us the clear, trumpet-like 
calls of geese talking to one another, and a moment 
later the louder tones and the splashing of water, which 
warned us that the birds had taken wing. In an in- 
stant the air resounded with their clamor, and now we 
could see them against the sky before, above us and on 
either hand — some of them almost within oar's length 
of us. 

Still the guns remained in theii cases and still I 
smoked my pipe, while John still tended sheet and tiller, 
for the law of North Carolina provides that birds shall 
not be shot except after sunrise and before sunset, and 
we respect the law. 

Soon the geese are gone, and now we can see against 
the sky long lines and wedges of canvas-backs and red- 
heads winging their flight north or south to the feeding 
grounds which please them best, while through the 
quivering air falls the ringing whistle of a thousand 
wings. 

Such are the sights and such the sounds that meet us 
under the breaking day as we cross the sound and enter 



380 DUCK SHOOTING. 

a quieter bay, where the boat's prow touches the marsh 
and we have reached our ducking point. 

We had been saihng over the waters of Currituck 
Sound, from which the low, sandy shore runs inland on 
a dead level for many miles. Much of this land is 
forest-covered, chiefly with tall trees of the Southern 
pine, whose straight, clean stems stand close together, 
often without any undergrowth, and remind one some- 
what of the forests of the Northwest coast, if such small 
things may be compared with great. Here and there 
the land has been cleared and the stumps rooted out, 
the fields for a few years plowed and sown with corn 
or cotton or sweet potatoes, and then their cultivation 
abandoned when new growths of seeding pines spring 
up, and after a while the old fields start new forests 
again. 

Most of the inhabitants of this country are to-day 
small landholders — farmers during the summer and 
fishermen and gunners in winter. They are a kindly, 
well-disposed people, truly Southern in the deliberate- 
ness of their actions, in their courtesy and in their hos- 
pitality. Many of the most intelligent and well-to-do 
of them barely know how to read and write. Although 
the winter weather here is often very cold, the houses 
are not built for cold weather, the chimneys are on the 
outside of the house, and the edifice itself is perched on 
stilts above the ground ; either piers of brick or sections 
of thick pine logs supporting the timbers of the frame. 
At intervals of a few miles, at the edge of the road may 
be seen standing in the pine forest, churches at which 



POINT SHOOTING. 381 

the people gather on Sunday, for they are most of them 
regular attendants at church, this being the only form 
of entertainment and diversion which they have. 

In the corner of some lot along the road, near each 
farm that one passes, may be noticed tiny shingled pent 
roofs, 6 or 8 feet long and half as broad, standing a foot 
above the ground and supported at each corner by a 
post. For several years, as I passed through the coun- 
try, I speculated as to what these might be. 

These roofs are shelters built over the graves of the 
dead, and there is surely a deep pathos in this custom of 
protecting from beating rain and drifting snow the last 
resting places of the forms of those whom we love so 
well. ]^\Iany a mourning mother in her comfortable 
home, her heart rent with the anguish of recent be- 
reavement, has suffered an added pang, as the storm 
beat upon the house, at the thought that the dear form 
which she has so often held in her arms lies in a grave 
out of doors exposed to all the fury of the tempest. It 
is a sweet thought in these simple North Carolinians to 
erect these shelters over the dear ones who have left 
them. 

Some of these roofs are new, some are now gray and 
weathered, and others have still fallen to decay and lie 
in little heaps upon the ground. The generation by 
which they were erected has passed away. There are 
left now no loving hands to tend these old-time graves. 
Even the names of the dead are only vague memories 
or have been forgotten. 

The dwellers on these little farms make fair livings 



382 DUCK SHOOTING. 

from their produce, which they ship by rail or by 
steamer to a market ; or if by chance their crops fail, 
they turn to the waters of the sound to supply them 
with food or with money. For his canvas-back ducks 
the gunner receives $2 per pair, and the common duck 
and the fish find a ready market in a little city only 
forty miles away, which is reached by water transpor- 
tation. So, really, the sound is the people's salvation, 
and to-day. just as it did centuries before the white 
man's foot touched this continent, it supports those 
who dwell along its shores. 

These men, between the gathering of their crops in 
early autumn and the preparing of their land in early 
spring, spend much of their lives on the sound ; so they 
are good boatmen, and, as a rule, know all the sloughs, 
leads and channels in these waters. Many of them are 
good shots, and from bush blinds and batteries kill, 
first and last, a great many ducks. They are also fond 
of hunting on the shore, chiefly with the aid of hounds, 
and sometimes follow the fox or drive the deer through 
lines of waiting men. They are a kindly people, and 
easy to get along with, the worst faults of the worst of 
them being drunkenness and a failure to respect the 
game laws. 

Of course, there is a large negro population here, 
though it is said to be only 25 per cent, of the whole for 
Currituck County. As a rule, the negroes have made 
very little progress since the war. They still fail to ap- 
preciate the necessity of economy and the saving of 
monev. and eat, drink and wear all that thev earn. The 



POINT SHOOTING. 383 

number of negroes who have accumulated property and 
become landholders in the county is very small. 

Currituck Sound is a long and shallow lagoon two or 
three miles wide, separated from the ocean by a narrow 
sand beach. The sound is bordered by low marshes, 
in which are many shallow ponds, leads and creeks, and 
is dotted with islands, also low. All this low marsh 
land supports a growth of tall cane, which in summer is 
bright green, turning yellow in the autumn. 

In ancient times — there are men still living who can 
remember it — the water had nearby connection with the 
sea. There were inlets through the sand beach and the 
tide ebbed and flowed through these channels. Beds of 
oysters, clams and scallops flourished here, and even 
now the boatman who is unfamiliar with the channels 
may sometimes run aground on the old shell banks 
whose life has long departed. 

Still longer ago the primitive dwellers on this coast 
drew a fat living of shellfish from the waters, and to- 
day at many points on the marshes of the mainland may 
be found heaps of shells which represent spoils gath- 
ered from the waters and carried to the camps, where 
the shells were thrown away after their contents had 
been extracted. Perhaps investigation of these shell 
heaps — true kitchen middens — might yield implements 
of this primitive time which would be of real interest. 

The skiff's nose struck the soft marsh and Gunner 
sprang joyfully ashore, while the sail slatted furiously 
in the breeze. Then John ran forward, unshipped the 
sprit, rolled up the sail against the mast, and unstepping 



384 DUCK SHOOTING. 

this and raising it on his shoulder, jumped ashore and 
•carried it into the cane out of sight and left it there. I 
handed out on to the marsh the different articles needed 
in the blind, until at length nothing was left in the skiff 
except her furniture and the decoys. Then we carried, 
the things up back of where the blind was to be made, 
and while I began to arrange matters there, John re- 
turned to the skiff and pushed it off to put out his 
decoys. 

These were piled in the skiff on either side of the cen- 
tre-board trunk, and there were perhaps in all seventy- 
five of them. The lines by which their weights were 
attached were 10 feet long. Using his pushing oar, 
John moved his boat about 20 yards from the point, 
and then thrusting the oar down into the mud, tied his 
painter to it by a close hitch, and picking up the decoys 
began to throw them overboard. He rapidly unwound 
the line from each, and then holding the decoy in one 
hand and the line about 2 or 3 feet above the weight in 
the other, he tossed them in all directions about the 
boat. It seemed to be very quickly and carelessly done, 
but there was no lack of care in it. When all that were 
needed had been thrown out it was seen that the head 
decoys were well up to windward of the blind, while the 
others were strung along from them to leeward, so that 
the last of the decoys were just a little to leeward of the 
l)lind. About opposite the windward decoys, but a lit- 
tle inside — toward the marsh — from them, were put the 
three wooden goose decoys. The finishing touch was 
to set out the live decoys — three in number, two ducks 



POINT SHOOTING. 385 

and a drake. For each live decoy there is a "stool," 
which consists of a sharpened stick 2^ feet long, sur- 
mounted by a circular or oval piece of board 6 inches 
across. Fastened to the stick which supports this 
board is a leather line 3 feet long and terminating in 
two loops, which are slipped over the duck's two feet 
and drawn tight so that the bird cannot get away, yet 
not so tight as to press unduly on the flesh. 

Pushing his boat up to the head of the decoys and 
fastening it as before, John pressed the point of one of 
the duck stools into the mud until the little table on 
which the bird was to stand was 2 inches below the 
water's surface. Then opening the coop, he took out 
the drake, passed its legs through the loops, drew them 
close and put the bird in the water. It flapped away 
from the boat with frightened quackings, but recover- 
ing at once, began to bathe and to dabble in the water. 
The boat was now pushed to the tail of the decoys, and 
the two ducks put out there. Then John pushed the 
skiff along the marsh, hid it behind a little point, and 
soon was heard coming crashing through the cane to- 
ward the blind. 

Meantime I had not been idle. I had brought every- 
thing to the blind, had set up in the ground the four 
forked sticks which were to support the two guns, had 
taken off the gun covers, opened the ammunition box, 
loaded one gun with duck cartridges and one with 
those for geese, had fixed the chairs, had broken an 
armful of cane and begun to repair the blind. In a 
short time, with John's assistance, the work was all 



386 DUCK SHOOTING. 

done and I was standing in the blind waiting for the 
birds to come. 

This, then, was the condition of things. The wind 
was northeast and I was facing south. The leading 
decoys were a little south of east of the blind, and the 
tail ones about south. Any birds coming from east, 
south or west would swing out in front of me and lead 
up over the decoys, and I ought to shoot at them just 
as they were passing over the tail decoys. My two 
guns, loaded and cocked, lay across their rests, muzzles 
to the left. Behind me was my chair, into which I 
would crouch if birds appeared. My clothing was 
yellowish gray, harmonizing well with the surrounding 
vegetation. The top of the cane which formed the 
blind was broken off about breast high, so as not to 
interfere with the shooting. 

As we approached the point in the morning we had 
disturbed a flock of 200 or 300 ducks and a small flock 
of geese, which had flown away unharmed to other 
feeding places. These birds we confidently expected 
would come back a little later, and now we began to 
watch for them with all our eyes. For a time, how- 
ever, nothing came, and I studied the actions of the live 
decoys. These were having a very good time washing 
themselves, preening their feathers, and occasionally 
tipping up to feed on the bottom. After a while one 
and another of them swam up to its "stool" and 
clambered on it, standing there and arranging its 
feathers. Frofn time to time the drake would call to 
the ducks and they would answer him, and when a 



POINT SHOOTING. 387 

buzzard or a blackbird passed over the water all three 
would call earnestly. 

As I stood there watching the live decoys enjoy the 
water and their freedom from the coop, I heard John 
call "Mark to the east," and, turning, saw a single bird 
coming low over the marsh. Gently lowering my body 
until my head was hidden by the cane which formed 
the blind, I watched the simple bird's approach. John 
had given utterance to vigorous quacks, which had 
caught the bird's ear, and it had seen the decoys and 
was flying toward them. While it was still 100 yards 
distant the old drake saw it and saluted, and the ducks 
lifted up their voices in sonorous calls. This was too 
much for the lone black duck. He passed outside the 
decoys, well beyond gunshot, swung up into the winci, 
turned back, and with lowered flight and down-bent 
neck surveyed the decoys and prepared to alight. He 
swung over the live ducks and up toward the drake, 
and I jumped up, put the gun on him and pulled. Bang 
went the first barrel and bang the second; the duck 
climbed and climbed, and kept climbing; Gunner tore 
through the cane to see what had fallen and to bring 
in the bird ; John made no comment and I said nothing 
either, though I had missed a shot that a ten-year-old 
boy ought to have killed. 

I knew why I had missed the bird, though not how. 
I had let him get too far over the decoys and past me, 
and shot at him as he was going away, and not allow- 
ing for the velocity of his flight, had shot behind him. 
So my first shot for the season was a disgraceful miss. 



388 DUCK SHOOTING. 

I do not know how other men feel about missing, 
especially about missing easy shots, but it plunges me 
into an abyss of shame and mortification from which 
1 do not easily emerge. At the best of times I am a 
very bad shot, and often my missing makes me declare 
that I will give up shooting altogether. When, how- 
ever, the time comes for me to get an outing again, I 
forget all about my past misses and start forth as hope- 
ful and as free from anxiety about missing as if I were 
a good shot instead of being a villainously bad one. 
So I mourned over this miss, and felt horribly ashamed 
that John, and even that Gunner, had been v^-itnesses 
of my disgrace. 

As I sat there thinking of this, John whispered 
"Mark behind," and, turning my head, I saw a pair of 
mallards — a big greenhead and a duck — almost over 
me. To grasp my gun and throw it to my shoulder 
seemed but a second's work ; but in a second a duck can 
go a long way, especially down wind, and by the time 
the muzzle of my gun was pointed in the birds' general 
direction they had passed over us and were far beyond 
the decoys. 

In desperation I fired both barrels, and again I heard 
Gunner rush to the water's edge, saw him look in vain 
for something to bring in, and saw the ducks like a 
pair of disjointed parentheses melt into the gray sky 
and disappear. 

"Those two came badly, sir," ventured John. "Yes, 
they came badly?' I replied, "but we ought to have been 
looking out for them." 



POINT SHOOTING. 3^9 

Some little time elapsed without any further excite- 
ment, when suddenly — although we thought that we 
had been making good use of our eyes — a duck ap- 
peared quite close to the decoys, coming in as gently as 
one could wish. I very slowly bent to get my gun, 
resolved that this time, if it came, I would retrieve my- 
self. On the bird came, looking only at the decoys; I 
rose up slowly, but he saw me and flared. I followed 
him, but gave the gun a little too much swing, and shot 
over him. Another miss. 

Again despair seized me ; and when a little later I 
missed an easy double at a pair of sprigs, which were 
alighting among the decoys, it tightened its grip. John 
said never a word in comment, nor did I. The trouble 
was too deep for words. 

It is astonishing how much room there is in the air 
around a duck. I have seen the time when the birds 
were so thick in the air that it seemed as if it would be 
impossible to shoot a charge of shot through them 
without killing one or more, but how very easy it is to 
spare their lives. After a few more misses, John seemed 
to feel that I stood in need of comfort and consolation, 
and ventured the remark that there must be something 
the matter with my cartridges. I was shooting wood 
powder, and he asked if the shells were not old ones. 
They were old ; but I knew very well that if the gun 
was held right the cartridges would do their work well 
enough, and — though I say it myself — I was too honest 
to attempt to excuse my lack of skill on the plea of 
poor ammunition. 



390 DUCK SHOOTING. 

It was not until after lunch that I got my first bird. 
John and I had both become careless about looking out, 
for it seemed useless to see the birds, as I could not hit 
them. Suddenly a big black duck cut across the head 
of the decoys, and, not seeing it until it had got by, I 
threw up my gun and took a snap shot at it, and killed 
it dead. It fell on the edge of the marsh and Gunner 
brought it with much pride. John, too, was delighted, 
and assured me that the shot was a good one, and that 
I was getting onto them now. I shook my head 
wearily, for I knew what an accident this success had 
been. Still I presume that I was unconsciously a little 
bit encouraged. At all events, we both kept a better 
lookout, and a little later, when three widgeons came 
by over the decoys, but not lowering to them, I doubled 
on a pair with the right barrel and killed the third v/ith 
my left. This was a little better, of course, but still it 
did not give me much courage. A little later, however, 
when a pair of mallards came up the wind high up, and 
I killed both, I began to take heart and really to feel 
as if perhaps I could do something. The conceit was 
((uickly taken out of me, however, by three widgeons, 
which stole in and alighted among the decoys unseen. 
These I missed on the water with the first barrel, and 
on the wing when they flew. They were not 25 yards 
from me. 

It was still early in the day — only 2 o'clock — and 
there was time yet to kill a lot of birds if they kept 
coming and — if I could only hit them. But there did 
not seem to be much chance of my doing that. John was 



POINT SHOOTING. 39 1 

encouraging, however, and regaled me with anecdotes 
of the numbers of birds that certain men whom he had 
accompanied had killed in the afternoon ; and especially 
of one who only a few weeks before, after a day of very 
bad luck, had in an hour's shooting just before sunset 
run his score up to over thirty. I anticipated no such 
good luck, but I determined to endeavor to use greater 
care in shooting; to take my birds earlier, to hold 
further ahead of them, and not to shoot unless I felt 
reasonably sure that I was holding on each bird about 
as I thought I ought to. 

Meditating thus, I was watching the sky to the south 
and east, when suddenly I heard from John the grating 
call of the canvas-back, followed by several loud honks, 
and sitting down I strained my eyes to see where the 
birds were to which he was calling. Peering through 
the stalks of the cane, I presently saw off to the right 
a single canvas-back coming with the steady flight that 
distinguishes these birds from almost any other ducks. 
He was an old male, white and handsome, and was 
headed straight for the decoys. John continued to call, 
and the bird had evidently made up his mind to come. 
We had a few canvas-back decoys out, and these with 
the geese were more likely to bring him ; for, as is well 
known, canvas-backs will stool to geese as well as they 
will to their own kind. He came on swiftly and stead- 
ily, and at length, just as he was over the tail decoys, I 
arose, held about 2 feet in front of his bill and fired, 
and the noble bird fell. He had hardly struck the water 
before Gunner had plunged in, swam through the de- 



39^ DUCK SHOOTING. 

coys and seized him, and in a few moments he was in 
my hand, and I was smoothing out his plumage and 
admiring the rich coloring of his head and neck, and 
the wonderful delicacy of his back plumage. 

"Mark in front, high up," said John, before I had fin- 
ished looking at the canvas-back. High up in the sky 
to the south of us I saw a pair of black ducks, which, in 
response to John's vigorous calls and to the invitation 
offered b}^ the live ducks, rapidly lowered their flight, 
took a quarter circle to the west, and then coming down 
to about 6 feet above the water flew confidently on 
toward the blind, one about 2 feet behind the other. 
I vi^aited till they were over the last of the decoys, rose 
to my feet and killed the first and then the second in 
capital style. They did not see me and never knew 
what had hit them. This was cheering. 

From this time on until it was time to take up I shot 
fairly well — very well for me — and at night when we 
returned to the house I had twenty-two ducks, and 
believed that I had in some small measure effaced the 
feeling of contempt that John — and Gunner — must 
have for me. 

I had other hours in the blind during my trip, and in 
some of them I did better than on this first day ; in none 
worse, so far as missing went, though often I came in 
with a less number of birds. 

Now and then, while we were sitting in the blind, 
John and I would be joined by one of the club watch- 
men, whose time is devoted to patrolling the marshes, 
driving off poachers, preventing night shooting, and 



POINT SHOOTING. 393 

generally doing all in their power to preserve the shoot- 
ing. These men are farmers in summertime, but 
during the winter are glad to earn what they can by 
watching the marshes; for this is a steady job, which 
pays much better than fishing or gunning. They are 
most of them old scunners, familiar from childhood with 
these w^aters and their islands, and with all the ways of 
the wildfowl. Constantly on the marsh and on the 
water, they know just where the ducks are "using," 
and what are likely to be the best shooting points on 
any given day. They are thus always consulted by the 
men who are going to shoot on the marshes under their 
charge, and their advice is usually taken. 

The life of these watchmen is a lonely one. For six 
days in the week they live on the marshes in little 
houses built for them in the fall, but on Saturday 
afternoons they report at the club and then go to the 
mainland to spend Sunday with their families. Lead- 
ing such a life, the watchman is delighted when one 
of the club members comes to shoot on the marsh under 
his charge, and often he spends most of the day with 
the gunner, helping his boatman to tie out and take up, 
assisting in retrieving the birds killed, and during the 
quiet times sitting in the cane with the boatman and 
gossiping. Some of them are silent men, but others are 
great talkers. 

The subjects which the two discuss are varied. Of 
course the ducks and their actions are a fruitful theme, 
but home matters claim a good share of attention ; the 
recent social events on the mainland, the last sermon 



394 DUCK SHOOTING. 

of the circuit rider; farming, past and future; mar- 
riages, sickness and death. 

1 heard one of them tell John a story which will per- 
haps bear repeating. He said : 

"I never knew till the other day that coons went 
fishing." 

"Why, of co'se they do," said John ; "they mostly live 
on fish and crabs." 

"No, that ain't what I mean. I mean fishing with a 
hook and line. The other day I was going up a little 
lead and I come to a bend, going slow and quiet, so's 
to see if they wus any ducks sitting in there. Just as I 
looked over the p'int I see an old coon a little ahead 
of me runnin' round on the beach this way and that 
way, like he w^as plum' crazy, and waving his paws. I 
watched him a little to see what he'd do, and pretty 
soon I see he was working around a little pool that had 
some minnies into it, and pretty soon he druv 'em up 
into a corner and he made a rush and sw^ep' a lot of 
'em ashore with his paws. I expected now to see him 
eat 'em, but he didn't; he just put 'em up where they 
couldn't get back to the water, and then he took one 
and trotted down to the water again. When he got 
there he stopped and looked about a little. When he 
found a place to suit him he stuck the minnie on one 
of his sharp claws and held that foot in the water. 
Pretty soon I saw from the way he acted that a fish 
w^as biting at the bait, and in a minute the coon jerked 
his paw out of the'water and threw a little fatback out 
on the bank. He ran to it. carried it up on the marsh. 



POINT SHOOTING. 395 

and put it on a little patch of grass, and then went back 
and baited his claw with another minnie. Then he 
caught another fatback and put it up with the first one, 
and then went on fishing again. He kept this up until 
he had caught quite a number, and at last when he 
carried a fish to where the others was lyin' on the grass 
he set up and put his hands on his knees and looked at 
the pile of fatbacks, and seemed to be studyin'. Then 
he laughed right out and said : 'Ha, ha, ha ! seven. 
Enough for supper.' That made me laugh out loud, 
and the coon grabbed up his fish and run off in the 
marsh." 

"Huh !" said John. "Expect me to believe that ?" 
The lives of these marsh men are monotonous. The 
watchman rises with the dawn, and as soon as it is light 
clambers up to his post of observation — the roof of his 
house. This is only a one-story shanty, but standing 
here he can see over the cane which surrounds him and 
can look down into the larger bays, ponds and creeks 
which are within his jurisdiction. He can see if birds 
are sitting in these waters, and whether any are flying, 
and easily gets a notion of what is taking place in all 
the neighboring marshes. Day after day he watches 
the ducks, studying their habits and learning their 
ways, and no one can give better advice to the gunner 
as to where he should tie out. 

Now and then a bit of excitement comes into the 
watchman's life, but it is excitement of a kind that he 
does not like. It is given in doses too strong for enjoy- 
ment. Occasionally the marshes are invaded by night 



396 DUCK SHOOTING. 

shooters, who — with or without a light — scuH up to 
rafts of sleeping ducks or geese and shoot them on 
the water, creating havoc in their close-packed ranks. 
When this occurs the watchman sallies out in his light 
skiff, and, knowing all the leads and short cuts, he 
usually has no difficulty in coming up with the poach- 
ers, whom he tries to drive away. On two or three 
occasions watchmen have been shot at by these gentry, 
though no one has ever been injured in this way. 
Several, however, have been badly frightened, and 
more than one has given up his berth under the stress 
of such a scare. Others, more courageous and wiser, 
put a bold face on the matter and give back threat for 
threat. Such persons the poachers speedily retreat 
from and avoid in future, for your true poacher is not a 
courageous animal. He does not enjoy a fight. Since 
the shootings that have recently taken place on these 
marshes the watchmen have taken to carrying shot- 
guns and rifles about with them at night, and in the 
future the night shooters may expect a little shooting 
from the other boat. 

Besides his work of guarding and patrolling, the 
watchman has little to occupy his time. Of course he 
does his own cooking, dish washing, wood chopping, 
and so on, and now and then he may be obliged to make 
a journey to the mainland for wood or water or pro- 
visions ; but still he has plenty of idle time on his hands. 
Often he employs a part of this in trapping the minks, 
muskrats and coons which abound on the stands. The 
few skins that he may get he sells at the store, and the 



POINT SHOOTING. 397 

cash which he is paid for these goes a httle way toward 
helping out the family living, or perhaps toward the 
expenses of next spring's farming operations. 

Certainly, these men are not the least interesting of 
the inhabitants of the marsh. 

The desirable wind for point shooting is one quarter- 
ing from behind the gunner. This gives the birds 
abundant room to swing over the water and to come 
up to the decoys, offering a good shot to the man in the 
blind. Sometimes, however, it happens that after one 
has tied out with the wind just right and everything 
apparently favorable, the wind will haul more and more 
in front of him, or may shift suddenly, so that it blows 
directly on the point and in the gunner's face. One 
result of this is that his decoys, instead of riding in a 
long line head to tail, swing around and now sit in the 
water side by side, their bills, of course, facing the 
wind. 

Worse than this is the fact that the fowl which come 
in can no longer swing over the water, but if they wish 
to alight to the decoys must swing over a marsh and 
come from behind the gunner and so over his blind. 
Thus they are quite certain to see him, or at least some 
of the strange objects that he has brought into the 
marsh ; or if they do not see him, at least they come 
from behind him, and he is obliged to twist around and 
shoot at them when they are coming toward him and 
nearly over his head. For most men, I think, shooting 
of this sort is very difficult, and usually when such a 
shift of wind takes place it is better for the gunner to 



398 DUCK SHOOTING. 

take up and move — if such a course is practicable — to 
some other point, where the wind is right. 

One of the chief difficulties that I find in shooting at 
birds that come in from behind the blind is that a large 
proportion of them come quite low, and so are not seen 
until they are almost upon the gunner. By the time he 
gets his gun to his shoulder the bird is likely to be 
almost within arm's length. If now it flares and goes 
directly up in the air the shot becomes an easy one ; 
but if, on the other hand, it keeps on over the gunner's 
head he has to twist around, and is very likely to shoot 
hastily at a straightaway, swift-flying bird, and to 
miss it. 

I have never yet shot in a blind with a remarkably 
good shot — a man who took all chances and killed a 
very large proportion of his birds. I know that there 
are such men, but it has never been my fortune to see 
one of them shooting wildfowl. 

Sometimes a bunch of birds coming low over the 
marsh at a tremendous rate of speed unseen may pass 
over a man's head with a sound which resembles the 
escape of steam from a large locomotive, and which, 
coming so unexpectedly, has a tendency to frighten one 
out of several years' growth. In my limited experience, 
canvas-backs and blackheads are the worst offenders in 
this respect, though occasionally an old black duck 
coming low down over the blind will startle one by the 
rustling of his feathers. On several occasions I have 
had a white-headed eagle come so near the blind that 
when I rose and shouted at him I could plainly hear his 



POINT SHOOTING. 399 

feathers creaking against each other as he threw him- 
self nearly over on his back and scrambled through the 
air to get away. 

It surprises one — though, of course, it is only natural 
— to see how many birds there are, which are not wild- 
fowl, that come close to the blind entirely unsuspicious 
of its occupant. Hawks and sometimes, during gray 
days, owls hunt over the marsh, eager to prey on the 
blackbirds and sparrows whose haunt is here. Gulls 
often pass near the decoys, and occasionally one sees 
flying through the air a loon or a cormorant. Some- 
times one of the latter may be seen perched over the 
water on a stake of some deserted bush blind. Eagles 
and buzzards, of course, and the ever-present crow, are 
constantly searching over the marsh and over the 
water, looking for dead and wounded ducks. 

From the many ducks and geese that are so lost to 
the gunner the eagles and the buzzards no doubt gain 
a fat livelihood, and the clean-picked skeletons of wild- 
fowl surrounded by the feathers are frequently seen in 
the marshes. 

Besides these, in and among the reeds live blackbirds, 
sparrows, marsh wrens and rails, any of which will 
■ venture close to the blind. Sometimes a little Carolina 
rail in its peregrinations along the water's edge will 
even walk into the blind and gaze at its occupant with 
bright, dark eye, uncertain what he may be. It is 
amusing sometimes to see two or three men and a dog 
go crashing through the cane in hot pursuit of one 
of these little lairds, who must laugh to himself at 



400 DUCK SHOOTING. 

the clumsy efforts made by his pursuers to capture 
him. 

Often a Httle whisp of snipe of two or three individu- 
als pass within gamshot of the blind, or a single bird, 
like a, bullet from the sky. may drop on some nearby 
point of the marsh, and run briskly about over the mud 
to the water's edge, probing with busy bill for food 
which is hidden l)eneath. In like manner now and then 
a killdeer plover or a pair of yellow-legs may fly in from 
beyond the marsh, and hurry along over the mud as if 
greatly pressed for time. 

Herons, of course, are abundant in the marsh, and 
are of three sorts. The night heron — in New England 
called cjuawk — and the bittern are seen less often here 
than the great blue heron, which in these parts is known 
by an apparently unmeaning name — "forty gallons of 
soup." This bird is common here, and often comes 
close over the blind, or alights in the water near it. 

It is interesting to watch one when it is fishing. Its 
huge wings and long straddling legs make a great com- 
motion over the water when it alights, though there is 
no splash when it puts its feet down. The moment that 
it has folded its wings, however, it straightens its legs, 
neck and body, and for a long time stands bolt upright, 
absolutely motionless, looking for all the world like a 
straight, weathered stick standing out of the water. In 
this position it resembles anything rather than a bird, 
and its attitude is extremely ungraceful. The position 
and the entire absence of motion are due, I suppose, 
first to its desire to see whether any enemy is in the 



POINT SHOOTING. 40I 

neighborhood ; and second to give its prey, which may- 
have been frightened by the shadow of its passing body, 
time to recover from this alarm. 

After a period of stillness which may last five or six 
minutes, but seems to the watcher much longer, the 
heron, still holding its neck straight and stiff and its 
bill pointed somewhat upward, takes a cautious step and 
then stands still for a moment. Then, seemingly re- 
assured, it moves on with slow, careful steps, its head 
turned a little on one side, evidently searching the water 
for its food. It does not take the conventional heron 
attitude until it sees some little fish that is within reach. 
Then very slowly it draws in its neck and darts out its 
strong, keen bill, and usually captures its prey; not 
always, however, for I have several times seen one piiss 
his stroke. 

These are big birds, and birds, too, that one seldom 
has an opportunity to kill, yet it always seems to me a 
pity to shoot at them. They can be eaten, to be sure ; 
)'et no one who has ducks and geese to eat would be 
likely to prefer heron. Unless the gunner has some 
use for it, it does not, to me, seem worth while to kill 
any bird. Life is something so mysterious that it 
should not be lightly destroyed, and I have no sympathy 
with the wantonness which leads many shooters to try 
their guns on every robin, swallow, nighthawk or bat 
that may fly near to them. This is commonly done 
"for fun," or to see "whether I can hit it ;" but it is all 
wrong. 

Besides the birds of all sorts of which I have spoken. 



402 DUCK SHOOTING. 

and the water fowl, which are so conspicuous, and of 
which the lucky gunner secures a few, there are killed 
here occasionally birds that are altogether unexpected. 

One of the most unusual of these was secured some 
5^ears ago by a local gunner, who of course did not 
know what it was, but shot it because it looked so 
strange. This was a dovekie, or little auk, a bird of 
the Arctic regions, which is said to breed in Greenland, 
and which occurs in small numbers in winter off all 
the North Atlantic States. It is rarely seen south of 
New York, and, for all I know, its North Carolina oc- 
currence may be a record. 

The white brant, or snow goose, is found here every 
year in small numbers, one large flock living on the 
outer beach not very far from the Currituck Light- 
house. These birds do not seem to associate with the 
common gray geese, but keep by themselves, and feed 
largely on the marsh instead of in the water. Some- 
times I have sailed within gunshot of this flock of 500, 
and their white heads appearing over the short marsh 
grass, which hides their bodies, have a very curious 
appearance. When fairly alarmed, they spring into 
tlie air and fly away with sharp, cackling cries, much 
less musical than those of the common Canada geese. 
They are seldom killed, I believe. 

Now and then among the birds brought in by the 
gunners will be seen a curious duck, unlike anything 
known here, and which the ornithologist at once recog- 
nizes as a hybrid — something which is not very un- 
common among the duck family. I have killed a male 



POINT SHOOTING. 403 

Iiybrid which was manifestly a cross between the mal- 
lard and the pintail, and have seen more than one hy- 
brid between the black duck and the mallard. 

I have heard of two or three strangers from Europe 
having been killed in these waters. These were Eng- 
lish widgeons, usually found associated with the 
American bird, and recognized as something strange 
only after they had been killed and retrieved. 

An abundant bird on the waters of Currituck Sound 
is that locally known as the hairy crown. This is the 
bird called in the books the hooded merganser. I have 
never seen these birds so abundant anywhere as here, 
and flocks of from 75 to 100 are sometimes seen. More 
often, however, the companies are much smaller. 

If you see these birds coming a good way off, they 
will very likely fool you by their manner of flight, and 
you will at first say "Blackheads," and then "No, can- 
vas-backs." Perhaps it will not be until they are almost 
within gunshot that you disappointedly exclaim : 
"Hairy crowns." These birds, though commonly they 
do not pay much attention to the decoys, come up with- 
out the least hesitation if they make up their minds to 
come, and alight in the water, swimming about with 
lowered crest and diving for food, c|uite unconscious 
that the decoys are shams. If you stand up in your 
blind and raise your gun they erect the crest in token 
of suspicion, and then may dive and swim under the 
water for a long way, or perhaps jump up and offer you 
a shot. It is only their swift flight that makes them 
hard to hit, for they fly very steadily. Sometimes, 



404 DUCK SHOOTING. 

when a little flock is flying across at a distance, they 
can be called to the decoys by an imitation of their note, 
which is something like that of the blackhead — a gut- 
tural, grating croak. 

The male hairy crown is a beautiful bird, with his 
elaborate livery of black, white, tan and delicate gray, 
but as hairy crowns are commonly regarded as worth- 
less for eating, they are often allowed to pass unharmed 
by the gunner unless he is shooting for count, when he 
will try to knock down those that come to him, as each 
one retrieved counts as a duck. 

The red-breasted merganser is much less common 
here than the hooded, but occasionally drops in among 
the decoys. Its local name is sawbill. The goosander 
I have never seen here, nor do the men with whom I 
have talked about it appear to know the bird. 

During much of the day the music and clamor of the 
geese, softened by distance, fall upon the gunner's ear. 
It may be that in some channel not far from him great 
numbers of these birds are resting on the water, talking 
to each other, and often flocks of traveling birds pass 
up and down the sound, calling to each other or an- 
swering the salutations of other birds at rest. Often 
too a sailboat, passing through a great raft of geese, 
will put all the birds on the wing, and they rise in a 
thick cloud of dark specks against the sky, looking like 
a swarm of bees. When these birds have been so dis- 
turbed the)'- often break up into small companies and fly 
here and there 'in different directions, seeking new 
resting places. 



POINT SHOOTING. 405 

The man who sits all day in his blind is likely to have 
some of these moving flocks of geese pass near him, 
and sometimes they may fly so close that he will have 
an opportunity to shoof into them, and to pick a bird 
or two down from the sky. If he has a couple of goose 
decoys in the water, and if his boatman is a good caller, 
his chance for a shot is, of course, much better. It is 
extremely interesting to see the boatman call down a 
goose and to watch the actions of the deluded bird as 
it swings lower and lower in wide circles, and at length, 
with outstretched neck and hanging feet, comes up over 
the decoys to join its supposed comrades at their head. 
When the bird is distant the men fairly shriek out their 
calls, but as it gets nearer and nearer their voices are 
lowered, their heads are bent toward the earth, perhaps 
they place their hands or their hats in front of their 
mouths. The conversations which they hold with each 
other and with the goose are no longer shrill and loud- 
voiced honks, but are chuckling confidences which the 
supposed geese on the water are sharing with one an- 
other. The incoming bird still calls with loud, sonor- 
ous tones, as if anxious to attract the attention of the 
wooden decoys, but as he gets nearer and nearer, the 
talk of the men becomes still lower, until at last, when 
the gunner jumps to his feet and levels his arm, it 
ceases altogether. 

Let no one imagine that because the goose is a great 
bird nearly 4 feet long, and apparently of slow and 
unwieldy flight, it is a matter of course that he will kill 
him. I confidently assert that there is nearly as much 



406 DUCK SHOOTING. 

room in the air around a goose as there is around a 
duck, and unless your gun is carefully held you will 
shoot behind the bird. If you miss him with your first 
barrel you are very likely to miss him also with the 
second, which is likely to be fired with undue haste. If, 
however, your first barrel has done the work, and he 
falls to the water, your boatman is certain to ofl^er you 
cordial congratulations which will warm the cockles of 
your heart. 

Often it may happen that, while the goose does not 
come down to the decoys, he will alter his flight and 
pass over the blind within long range. In such a case 
your shot may perhaps fail to break any bone, and yet 
may mortally wound the bird, which, after making a 
wide circuit or a long flight, will at last come to the 
water stone dead. 

The dogs used in this gunning are Chesapeake Bay 
dogs, brown or tan in color, and with coats long or 
short, straight or curly. They are admirable water 
dogs, and those which are well trained do work that is 
really marvelous. 

To me these dogs look like the pure bred Newfound- 
lands which we used to see years ago, before the New- 
foundland had been crossed with the rough St. Ber- 
nard, to give him the size which is regarded as essential 
for show purposes. I know that it is often said that the 
Chesapeake Bay dogs are a breed formed by crossing 
the Irish water spaniel with the Newfoundland, but I 
can see in the specimens that have come under my eye 
no trace of water spaniel character, except perhaps 



POINT SHOOTING. 407 

color, and every mark of Newfoundland. Even the 
color is not that of the spaniel, for we know that the 
original Newfoundland was often tan colored, or had 
tan points. The very small ears, the broad head, the 
short muzzle, the lack of feather on legs and abundantly 
feathered tail — the whole ensemble of the animal, in 
fact — to my mind point back to a Newfoundland an- 
cestry much purer than anything we are in the way of 
seeing nowadays. 

I prefer to believe the tradition which relates that the 
Chesapeake Bay dogs originated from two puppies 
rescued from a sinking ship which had sailed from 
Newfoundland and brought to Baltimore, and that 
these dogs are Newfoundland dogs of the old type, than 
which no more faithful, intelligent and vigorous breed 
ever existed. It may be that the race has not been kept 
pure, yet I think it has; for we see them generation 
after generation showing the same physical character- 
istics, the same splendid courage and endurance, and 
the same intelligence and love for the water. 

I am told by a friend that these dogs can readily be 
trained to work to the gun in upland shooting, and that 
when so taught they display unexcelled nose and bird 
sense, and 1 regard them as most valuable dogs, and 
wonder that a breed so valuable has been so neglected. 

The amount of work that these dogs will perform is 
very surprising. From just after sunrise until sun- 
down, in cold, blustering weather, they will bring the 
ducks, swimming perhaps 75 or 100 yards for each one, 
or hunting through the thick cane for those that have 



4o8 DUCK SHOOTING. 

fallen on the marsh. Often each trip to bring a duck is 
made in part over soft mud, through which the dog 
must wallow, as it is too thick for swimming and yet 
too soft for walking ; often the ice must be broken for .1 
long distance to get to the bird ; often the ice is too weak 
to support the clog, who breaks through every little 
while, and then must laboriously and carefully clamber 
out on the breaking ice in pursuit of a cripple which is 
moving along toward a distant marsh or toward open 
water. 

I have often seen a dog bringing a bird over thin ice 
lie down on his belly w'ith widely spread forelegs and 
drag himself along inch by inch, thus spreading his 
weight over as great a surface as possible so as to avoid 
breaking through. Then, when a place was reached 
where the ice was stronger, he would carefully rise to 
his feet and trot along until the yielding ice again 
warned him that he must use especial care. In a case 
where several trials had shown a dog tha*^ the ice would 
not bear him, and that it was a waste of time for him 
to try to travel on it, I have seen him advance by 
bounds, springing out of the water and coming down 
with all his weight on the ice, thus breaking a lane 
through it to the bird. In this particular case the dog's 
stifles were so bruised by continual blows against the 
sharp edges of the ice that next day he was extremely 
sore and lame in both hind legs. 

Another bit of ice work done by another dog seemed 
to me to show great intelligence. A bird had been shot 
high in the air and had fallen heavily on thin ice 40 



POINT SHOOTING. 409 

yards in front of the blind. It had gone through 
the ice and did not reappear. The dog sent out 
seemed disposed to cross the ice to the opposite marsh, 
but, called back, found the hole through which the duck 
had gone, but not the duck, though it was evident that 
he smelt it. He made several casts about the hole, but 
did not catch any scent, and then went back toward the 
hole, but when 3 or 4 feet from it stopped, looked 
at the ice and began to scratch. In a moment or two 
he had made a small hole through the thin and soft ice. 
and, quickly enlarging it, put his mouth down into 
the water, pulled out the duck, and brought it to shore. 
I believe his finding the duck — which had evidently had 
life enough to swim a little way under the ice — was 
pure accident ; he happened to see it ; but his digging 
the hole in the ice showed wisdom. 

These dogs have keen noses. They follow unerringly 
the trail of a duck through the thick cane, and can trail 
a crippled duck that has gone ashore on the marsh to 
the spot where he landed by the scent that his body 
leaves on the water. I have seen this done many times, 
They understand perfectly the live decoy ducks, and 
swim to and fro past them without in the least regard- 
ing them, though the decoys do not seem to like it if the 
dog comes too close to them, and splash and quack at 
a great rate until he has gone by. 

If properly trained, I imagine that these dogs are the 
best retrievers in the world ; but often they are not well 
trained. Some dogs will bring the duck to shore and 
then drop it, leaving the boatman to go out and bring 



4IO DUCK SHOOTING. 

it to the blind ; others, after bringing them ashore, will 
bite their birds badly, or will carry them into the marsh 
and leave them there. I have heard of a dog that got 
tired and refused to go for his birds ; but, being forced 
to go out, swam back to the marsh with the bird, car- 
ried it into the cane, and after being gone a long time 
returned to the blind with his paws and nose quite 
muddy. A search in the marsh by the boatman re- 
vealed the fact that he had carried the duck a little way 
in from the shore, and had then dug a hole and buried 
it so completely that only one wing and the legs showed 
above the earth he had heaped on it. 

These dogs, like any others, require careful handling 
by a judicious trainer, and in addition, as they are great, 
strong animals, they require a great amount of work. 
A properly trained dog, however, is an indispensable 
adjunct to the point shooter, and will save him a great 
number of birds in a season. 

The birds w^iich pass over or stop on the marsh are 
its most obvious inhabitants ; but there are many others 
which the casual visitor scarcely ever sees. Of these 
the largest are the half-wild horses, cattle and hogs 
turned out to winter by their owners. They feed 
among the tall cane, and only now and then come to the 
water's edge to drink or to eat the succulent water 
plants that drift against the shore. 

With these animals the struggle for existence must 
be a severe one ; for, to one accustomed to the pastures 
of the North or -West it would seem that there is little 
or nothing to eat on the marsh. Of course, vegetation 



POINT SHOOTING. ^H 

is not lacking; but there can be little nutriment in the 
hard cane or its harsh leaves, or in the coarse, round 
marsh grass which grows only in infrequent patches. 
The drifting grass, which consists of the rejected por- 
tions of the water plants pulled up by the wildfowl in 
their search for its roots, is scanty in quantity, and can 
hardly be very nourishing food. The hogs do better 
than horses or cattle, for they unearth the roots of the 
cane and the flags, and must procure not a little animal 
food. 

The horses are confined to the outer beach, and visit 
the adjacent marsh only to feed. They are little ani- 
mals, not unlike the well-known Chincoteague* beach 
ponies, and are all branded. They are a tough and 
hardy race, qualified through inheritance and experi- 
ence well to fight the battle of life. The cattle are 
small, wild and scrawny. 

Occasionally when you are sailing through these 
waters you will see, as you pass a watchman's house, a 
fresh skin tucked up to dry, and the long, ringed tail 
hanging down from it at once proclaims its species. 
Coons are abundant here, and it is not strange that they 
are so. In summer the nesting birds and in winter the 
crippled ducks furnish them feathered food, while at all 
seasons the waters abound in fish. We are most of us 
accustomed to think of coons as passing a good part of 
their time in trees, but the coons of the marsh must by 
this time, I should think, have lost the art of tree 
climbing: since, except for an occasional straggling 
pillentary bush, there is here nothing larger to climb 



412 DUCK SHOOTING. 

than a stalk of cane. Rarely seen by the gunner, the 
coon lives an easy, lazy life here. Now and then he puts 
his foot in a marshman's trap, and less often a gunner's 
dog, hunting for a wounded duck, may suddenly fall 
upon him, and the sound of the fight will empty 
the blind, and bring boatman and gunner crashing 
through the cane to learn the cause of the disturbance. 
It is in such ways as these that the coon is sometimes 
killed. 

Next in order after the coon comes the mink — 
artful, ferocious, daring. Like the coon, he fishes and 
hunts, but he has ten times the coon's energy. Not 
satisfied with the wild game of the marsh, he prowls 
about the blind and may steal a duck, if one is carelessly 
left at a little distance. He fights the muskrat, and 
sometimes kills and eats him, and then he goes fishing 
every day. The mink is rarely killed except by the 
trapper. 

The muskrat is everywhere, and if you have occasion 
to walk across the marsh you will now and then plunge 
thigh deep into one of the holes that it has dug. Some- 
times as you sit in your blind you will see it swimming 
toward your decoys, or crossing some lead not far away. 
It does no special harm except by its burrowing, which 
breaks away the marsh, destroys ditches that may have 
been cut, and makes pitfalls for the careless to fall into. 

In the winter, when I see the marsh, its reptiles are 
safely hidden away in their warm sleeping places. So 
it is that the snakes, if any there be, and the tortoises are 
not seen. But in summer, I am told, there are snakes 



POINT SHOOTING. 413 

and snappers and terrapin ; of these last there are not 
many. 

All through the winter, however — except when, as 
sometimes occurs, a freeze has locked the waters of the 
sound — there are fish a-plenty. Of course the most im- 
portant and valuable are chub, which I take to be the 
large-mouthed black bass; but there are many other 
smaller sorts which may or may not be good to eat. 
The common blue crab abounds here in summer, and 
everywhere on the marsh its shells may be seen — the 
relics of feasts had by the coons. 

In the spring and the late summer these marshes are 
the resting places of thousands on thousands of beach 
birds and rails. Here may be found great flocks of 
waders of all descriptions, from the tiniest sandpiper 
up to the great sickle-bill curlew. These sandpipers 
and rails wade busily about over the mud flats where 
the ducks have been swimming or probe them for food. 
Then gulls of many sorts winnow their slow way over 
the broad channels, and companies of sea swallows hunt 
the schools of tiny fish that swim in the shallows. 

At whatever season of the year you take it, the life 
of the marsh is abundant, and is worth observation and 
study. 

We are told that it is the dying swan that sings the 
sweetest song. Those that we see about the marsh 
are musical enough, but so few of them are killed that 
T cannot believe that the ordinary note which they utter 
is the one which immediately precedes death. Yet it is 
a soft, sweet call, high pitched, pleasing and hard to 



414 DUCK SHOOTING. 

imi;ate. Koo, koo, kookoo, koo, is the way it goes, the 
tiock calHng to their leader, and the leader answering 
them again. 

In ancient song and in story the swan holds a firm 
place, nor is his eminence confined to any land. To 
Lohengrin in his search for the Holy Grail, and to the 
Blackfoot Indian seeking out the home of the Sun, 
swans come as supernatural helpers. 

Its size, the purity of its plumage, and its soft, sweet 
notes make the swan always a striking object, and it is 
not strange that this bird should have impressed itself 
on the imagination of all peoples, and that this im- 
jM-ession shcnild find voice in the folk stories of races 
which have attained the highest civilization and culture, 
as well as of tribes that are still savages. As the mind 
of man is everywhere the same, so we see that swans 
are used by the ancient gods as messengers and beasts 
of burden, and in the same way and with a like object 
tliey draw the boat of a Lohengrin and carry across the 
ocean an American Scarf ace. 

The swans move slowly through the sky, with wing- 
l)eats that seem heavy and labored, but which carry 
them forward at a high rate of speed. If tliat flock were 
near enough for you to kill one of those birds and you 
did so, you would find that in falling his impetus would 
carry him a long way forward before he struck the 
earth or the water. 

Swans are killed usually only when by chance they 
fly over the blind low enough to be reached with a shot- 
gun. Few gunners haxQ swan decoys, though I have 



POINT SHOOTING. 415 

seen, ofi the sloops of one or two professionals, a great 
pile of these ; for the swan will decoy readily, coming 
either to swan decoys or to the call alone. I remember 
once tying out at a point in a bay from which we put 
out great flocks of swans and geese, and an hour or two 
later a single swan was seen flying toward the bay. 
My boatman called to it, while I tried to change the 
duck cartridges which were in the gun for those loaded 
with buckshot, which were lying ready for just such 
an emergency. Alas for the chance! The day was 
rainy, the chambers of my gun a little foul from smoke, 
and the cartridges had swollen. It took me a long time 
to get out the ones that were in and a long time to 
insert the others in the chamber. While I was wretch- 
edly working at this I was reduced to the last pitch of 
nervousness by the boatman, who punctuated his calls 
to the swan by remarks such as these; "Here he 
comes!" "He's heading right for us!" "Be ready 
now, he's almost near enough !" "Now he's right over 
the decoys ; get up and kill him !" "Oh, shoot, shoot !'* 
"There he goes!" "He's gone!" There was a pause^ 
during which I managed to shove first one and then 
the other cartridge into the gun ; but before I had closed 
it the boatman whispered excitedly : "Here he comes 
back again, right over the decoys !" Closing the gun, I 
stood up and killed the great bird just beyond my 
furthest decoys. 

"Oh !" cried the boatman, as he ran to the skiff to 
get the bird, "that's wuth a dollar — a dollar, sir." 

Sometimes swans do curious things. Once watching 



41 6 DUCK SHOOTING. 

a wedge of seven birds that flew over, 200 or 300 yards 
distant, and that were slowly lowering themselves 
toward the waters of the sound, I saw one bird help 
himself along by means of another. The last swan on 
one arm of the V seemed higher than the others, which 
were close in front of him, and with a quick stroke or 
two he overtook the bird immediately before him, 
caught his tail feathers in his bill, and, bending his 
neck, pulled his own breast close to the tail of the other 
bird, whose progress seemed absolutely stopped. Then 
the last bird let go the tail and they all went on. It 
looked as if the last bird had used the other to pull him- 
self down to its level, being himself too impatient to 
wait for the slower descent of flight. The occurrence 
seemed to me to be a remarkable one, and called up to 
my mind the old story of little birds crossing the Medi- 
terranean on the backs of owls, geese and cranes, and 
the story, related years ago m Forest and Stream by 
Dr. J. C. Merrill, of the "Crane's Back" of the Crow 
Indians. 

All day long the gray clouds have hung low over the 
waters, and occasionally the sad heavens have dropped 
down their rains, which the winds have thrown spite- 
fully against us. Now, however, just at the close of 
the day, the broad orb of the sun looks out at us from 
the western sky just as it is falling below the horizon. 
Slowly it sinks until only a thin red line is visible above 
the low, distant forest which bounds the view to the 
west. I take a last, long look about me to see if perhaps 
a duck will come before the sun has actually set ; but. 



POINT SHOOTING. 417 

seeing no bird, I break down my gun and say to John, 
"Take up." 

As he crashes through the cane to get the skiff, I 
unload both guns and put them in their covers, close 
ammunition box, and begin to carry the things down to 
the edge of the marsh. John is already among the 
decoys, taking up first the live ducks — which he puts 
in their coop — and then the wooden ones, which he 
stacks neatly in their places. Then, when he pushes 
the boat to the marsh, I pass him the things from the 
shore, handing him last of all the ducks, which he packs 
away on and abaft the decoys, counting them as he lays 
them down : "Twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty- 
nine, thirty, and the hairy crown's thirty-one. A pretty 
good day's work, sir!" 

I put on my heavy coat and step in the skiff, and 
while I light my pipe, John pushes the boat through the 
shallow water, and presently steps the mast and sets 
the sail, and with a merry ripple the little boat bears us 
homeward. 

"Well, John, it's my last day, and it has been a good 
one. I am sorry to go." 

"I wish you could stay longer, sir; but anyhow 
you've had some good shooting, and you certainl)^ have 
done right well — better'n I thought you could that first 
day." 

And so I have. 



4l8 DUCK SHOOTING. 



SEA SHOOTING ON THE ATLANTIC. 

Along the coasts of Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode 
Island and Connecticut great hordes of wildfowl gath- 
er each winter, driven from the North by the ice which 
blocks their feeding grounds. For the most part these 
birds are sea-ducks of different sorts, and feeding, as 
they do, largely on the shell-fish which they bring up 
from the bottom, they are not highly esteemed as food. 
Nevertheless, the dwellers along the seashore eat them 
and think them good, although in taste and appearance 
they are very different from the birds that live chiefly 
on the fresh water, whose food is largely vegetable. 

These birds are chiefly the three scoters — the black 
scoter, the white-winged scoter and the skunk-head — 
old-squaw, or long-tailed duck, eider ducks, in varying 
numbers, with a few whistlers or golden-eyes, and oc- 
casionally a few harlequins. When not feeding, these 
birds commonly rest well out to sea, but in the morning 
and at the approach of evening they usually fly into the 
bays, where the water is more shallow, to feed on the 
clams and winkles, which they procure by diving. 

The large beds of ducks break up at dawn, and the 
birds fly by little companies, continuing to move about 
until ten or eleven o'clock, when they settle down and 
do not fly again until evening. At many points along 
this coast, ducking in line is practiced, a form of sport 
not known elsewhere, we believe. In this, besides his 
gun and ammunition, the gunner requires a flat-bot- 



SEA SHOOTING ON THE ATLANTIC. 419 

tomed skifif, twelve or thirteen feet long, decked over, 
with a combing about the cockpit, which is large enough 
to hold one, or at most, two persons, and an anchor 
rope, long enough to enable the boat to ride freely, and 
with the anchor at one end and at the other a buoy, with 
an eye fastened into it, and a light painter ten or twelve 
feet long, which has a snap at the free extremity. Be- 
side this, fastened to the snap is a light line, a little 
longer than the painter and the distance from the bow 
where the painter is fastened to the cockpit. This line 
is made fast to the boat, just within the cockpit, and 
runs to the snap on the painter, to which also it is made 
fast. Thus, when the anchor is out and the painter 
snapped to the eye in the buoy, this last can l)e 
brought alongside by pulling on the light line. The 
painter can then be unsnapped, the boat freed and the 
buoy left floating on the water. This not only saves the 
trouble of lifting the anchor at frequent intervals, but 
the buoy left in place holds the gunner's position in the 
line, which nobody will attempt to occupy. 

Ducking in line is a communal form of sport. The 
gunners of a locality agree all to go out on a certain day, 
and unless fifteen or twenty boats go, it is useless to 
make the start. The boats range themselves in a line 
off shore, from some headland or point which sep- 
arates two bays in which the ducks commonly feed. 
The first boat is placed two or three hundred yards 
from the shore, the next one a hundred yards outside 
of that, the next still further out, until the twenty boats, 
extending out from the point, make a cordon of gun- 



420 DUCK SHOOTING. 

ners, extending out to sea nearly a mile from the point. 
Usually lots are drawn for position, those nearest the 
shore not being so desirable as those farther out. An 
effort is made to be on the ground before daylight, as 
the shooting begins with the earliest dawn. Often, 
therefore, the gunners are obliged to rise at two or 
three o'clock in the morning, to make their way to the 
shore, get into their boats and perhaps pull a distance 
of three or four miles before reaching the ground. At 
other times all of them will congregate in some barn 
near the starting point and sleep there, and the start 
will be mane by all together. 

Warm, pleasant weather is desirable for this sport, 
although it is true that the birds fly best and aflford the 
easiest shooting when the wind blows hard and the 
weather is rough and boisterous. But it is often no 
joke to pull one of these little flat-bottomed skiffs three 
or four miles through the darkness against a head wind 
and through a rough sea, and even after the gunner is 
anchored, if the wind blows hard, the work is wet and 
uncomfortable, and the reports of the guns are punctu- 
ated by the angry slapping of the skiffs upon the water, 
as they rise and fall with the sea. Even if the water is 
calm it may be bitterly cold, and ice may be making 
along the edges of the bay, so that after the gunner has 
reached his stand, and thrown over his anchor, and the 
labor of rowing is at an end, he soon chills, slaps his 
arms vigorously and dances jigs on the ice in the bot- 
tom of his boat. - After one has reached his position 
and thrown over his anchor, it is interestino- to listen to 



SEA SHOOTING ON THE ATLANTIC. 42 1 

the movements of the other boats : the regular sound of 
the oars, the heavy plunge of the anchor as it is tossed 
out, the impatient exclamation of some neighbor who 
has suffered misadventure, the loud laughter of another 
who is conversing with a companion. 

As the first light appears in the east the whistling of 
wings begins to be heard ; perhaps the plaintive cry of a 
loon comes floating through the twilight, or the distant 
calling of a black duck, feeding in the marsh. Pres- 
ently, from near the shore, a gun is heard, followed by 
the high-pitched laugh of a loon, which, in the darkness, 
has flown close up to the boats, and being shot at, flies 
down along the line, looking for an opening. As his 
shadowy form is discerned in the dusk of the morning, 
each gunner hurls after him an ounce of lead, but, un- 
touched, he passes on, and finally is lost in the gray 
mists of the distance. At the report of the guns, far 
out over the water is heard the faint whistling of many 
wings, and with them comes the melodious honking of 
gangs of geese, passing high overhead. The sky 
grows brighter and brighter, more gunshots are heard, 
and presently the sun rises. 

Now, as one looks seaward, great bunches of birds 
can be seen rising from the water, and these breaking 
up into small flocks, fly in all directions. Perhaps the 
first to approach the line will be a bunch of great coots, 
some of them white-winged, others dead black and still 
others gray. They fly swiftly and steadily, and come 
nearer and nearer, until they have almost reached the 
line of boats, and then, noticing them — seemingly for 



422 DUCK SHOOTING. 

the fi)-st time — they try to check themselves; but it is 
too late to turn, and with swift and steady flight, at 
wonderful speed, they fly on, passing between two of 
the boats, and twenty or thirty feet above the water. 
In each boat a man springs to his knees, follows the 
swift course of the birds for an instant with his gun, 
there are four reports, and three of the birds turn heels 
over head, falling to the water, while two more slant 
downward, striking the surface with heavy splashes, 
one near and one much further off. The two gunners 
draw their buoys to the side of the boats, unsnap the 
painters, and, shipping their oars, row off to recover 
the dead, and when this is done, return to their place in 
the line. Many of the birds, as they strike the water, 
dive at once, and coming up a long way off, repeat their 
diving, swimming so fast and so far that they are not 
pursued. Others which dive are not seen to come up 
at all ; these are believed to go to the bottom, and there 
to cling to the weeds until dead. Others, still, perhaps 
too hard hit even to dive, skulk off, with the body 
completely submerged, and nothing but the bill ex- 
posed above the water. If there is a little ripple, or 
still more if there is a sea on, it is hardly visible. 

The first shooting of the season is almost entirely 
at coots. (0/(yt';;//fl), which are the earliest of the sea 
ducks to arrive off the coast. Somewhat later, as the 
weather grows colder, the old-squaws, or long-tailed 
ducks, make their appearance, and their coming adds 
interest to the sport. They fly with great swiftness, 
and very irregularly, and their long tails and dodging 



SEA SHOOTING ON THE ATLANTIC. 423 

flight remind one of the movements of the passenger 
pigeon, while their continued and peculiar cry, ozvl- 
owl-ozvly, is a pleasing sound as it ripples musically 
across the water. 

As the morning proceeds and the birds fly across 
different parts of the line, there is continued interest 
and excitement. Men are looking in all directions for 
birds, and such cries as, "All solid to the east'rd," "To 
the south'rd," "All down," and other warning cries, are 
constantly passed from boat to boat, as the birds are 
seen coming from the different directions. 

Often a bunch of birds will come quite close to the 
line, and then, alarmed by some movement, will whirl 
off and away, only to return and try to cross at some 
other point. Sometimes they may separate, and en- 
deavor to pass in two or three small bunches, and then 
the shooting is like that of a skirmish line, as every one 
within reach, and some who are beyond it, shoot at the 
birds. The interest is kept up all through the morn- 
ing, and many birds fall. Most of them, probably, will 
be coots or old-squaws, but there may be a few broad- 
bills, perhaps a black duck or two, some whistlers and 
loons, and perhaps a crow, shot wantonly by some 
man who knew no better. So the sport proceeds, and 
the hours glide by, until, when the village spire sends 
its music quivering across the bay, telling the hour of 
eleven, anchor is weighed, and all the boats start for 
the shore. 

In the dead of winter, when the cold is bitter, and 
the shores are piled with ice, so that the boats can 



424 DUCK SHOOTING. 

hardly be launched, ducking- in line is not practiced, 
but when spring comes, and the milder days of March 
and April are at hand, it is often resumed. At this 
time, however, the birds are mated, or are seeking 
mates, and many of them are shot over decoys. Old- 
squaws and coots, alike, come up to decoys well at this 
season, and seem to pa}^ little regard to the boat which 
is anchored out on the feeding ground, of course in 
perfectly plain sight. 

The gunner rows out to the place where he has ob- 
served the birds to be feeding, and throwing out his 
decoys, anchors his boat not more than twenty-five 
yards from them, and then, getting down in the bot- 
tom, remains there out of sight. Perhaps the birds 
imagine the boat, which is usually painted white, to be 
one of the pieces of the ice that was so lately floating 
around in the bay; but, at all events, they come up 
readily to decoys, and often afiford good shooting. By 
this time many of the old-squaws have assumed their 
summer plumage, and beautiful birds they are as they 
rest lightly on the water, and with tail held upward 
at an angle, and lowered head and thickened neck, pur- 
sue their mates. At this season rarely, when the 
weather is foggy, there will come to such a gunner an 
occasional opportunity for a shot at a flock of migrat- 
ing geese, confused by the fog, and flying low over the 
water. This is regarded as great luck, for what the 
grizzly bear is to the big game hunter of the West, the 
great gray goose is to the gunner on the New England 
shore. 



SEA SHOOTING ON THE ATLANTIC. 425 

On the Maine coast, at the mouth of some of the 
rivers, as, for example, near the quaint old seaport 
town of Kennebunkport, there is fair coot and sea-duck 
shooting over decoys. These are anchored between 
the grounds where the birds pass the night and their 
feeding places nearer to the shore. No attempt is 
made at concealing the boat, though the gunners keep 
themselves out of sight as well as possible. The de- 
coys should be out by daylight, for, before the sun 
rises, the birds are on the move, and a long dark line to 
the eastward will be seen, the birds flying toward the 
shore. In such places as this a few eider ducks — 
called sea ducks on this coast — are likely to be killed, 
and rarely among them will be found a king eider. 
Now and then a little bunch of harlequin may fly with- 
in gun-shot, and perhaps one or two of them will be 
knocked down, but unless they are quite dead they are 
not likely to be recovered, for ihey are most expert at 
diving and skulking. 

In all this sea shooting the bag is likely to be a 
mixed one, and to contain everything, from grebe and 
loon up through old-squaw, coot, eider and broad-bill 
to black duck or goose. Those who practice it are out 
for shooting, and shooting they will have, no matter 
at what it may be. 

At certain points along the rocky New England 
coast the bays, sounds and harbors are dotted with 
little islets surrounded by deep water. Often the feed- 
ing grounds of the coots, old-squaws and broad-bills 
are in the immediate neighborhood of such islands, and 



426 DUCK SHOOTING. 

where this is the case, point shooting- is not infrequently 
had. The decoys are put into the water in the usual 
way, but often their anchor strings have to be very long 
to reach the bottom. The gunners conceal themselves 
among the rocks on the shore. 

Early in the season, when the birds are gentle, or 
again in spring, when they are more sociably inclined, 
fair shooting can occasionally be had in this way, but 
after it has been practiced for a little while, ducks avoid 
the shore and rarely come up within shooting distance. 
The birds commonly secured by this method are the 
scoter and the long-tailed duck, though occasionally 
broad-bills come to the decoys, and more rarely dififer- 
ent species of fresh-water ducks. 

A method of approach which can often be practiced 
on diving birds is worth knowing. We have seen it 
used successfully on whistlers and sheldrakes, and on 
one or two occasions on old-squaws, which at high 
water happened to be feeding near the marsh. Usually 
it can be practiced only where the birds are single or 
at least very few in number, so that occasionally all are 
under water at the same time. 

When the bird dives, the gunner runs toward it as 
rapidly as possible, stopping before it comes to the 
surface and standing perfectly still until the bird dives 
again. Usually it takes a fraction of a second — time 
enough for a man to halt — before the bird gets the 
water out of its eyes and sees clearly, and this gives the 
gunner the opportunity to stand quiet before he is seen 
by the bird. Usually the bird does not notice the man 



SEA SHOOTING ON THE ATLANTIC. 427 

unless he makes some motion, but will dive again. 
When there are a number of the fowl which are con- 
tinually going- down and coming up at different times 
and in different places in the neighborhood, it is almost 
hopeless to attempt this means of approach, for some 
one of them is quite sure to detect the gunner. 

Sea shooting, as practiced along the north Atlantic 
coast, is everywhere much the same. The following 
account describes it on the New Jersey coast : 

To the east the first rays of daylight were beginning 
to show themselves and dye the ocean a dark purple, in- 
terspersed with bars of light, that under the gentle west 
wind looked like beaten copper. In the distance shone 
the beacon of the Scotland Lightship, and further west 
on the Navesink hills the Highland lights were begin- 
ning to pale in the coming day. Down in the north- 
east a schooner could dimly be made out, standing with 
all sail set toward Sandy Hook. To the south the 
water was cold and leaden, while in-shore it was break- 
ing into ripples, and the western horizon looked as if it 
had plenty of wind in store, and would shortly prove 
the fact to us. Around us on all sides could be made 
out a dozen or more boats riding at anchor, and to keen 
eyes each had its string of decoys aboard. While I 
was enjoying the picture and watching the day break, 
half forgetting the purpose for which I had come, I 
was startled by hearing C. say, "Mark southeast." 
This dispelled all dreaming, and turning my eyes, I 
made out a single bird rapidly approaching the nearest 



428 DUCK SHOOTING. 

boat to the south of us. On lie came, his dusky wings 
seeming but barely to clear the ripples, heading a little 
to the south of our neighbor. Then, as if seeing the 
decoys for the first time, he swung swiftly in toward 
them and prepared to pitch. A flash, a dull boom of a 
heavily-loaded gun, a streak of white water under him, 
and a cloud of smoke rising from the innocent-looking 
fishing-boat, seemed to have convinced him that he had 
made a mistake and a narrow escape, and had better 
change his quarters, which he did in spite of the second 
invitation sent after him. Straight in-shore the bird 
w^ent, and in his haste and fright, miscalculating the 
danger distance from the in-shore boat, went down 
with a rush and splash before a charge of No. 2 sent 
at him. 

"Look out, here comes one straight for you ; and 
don't you miss the first bird for anything." "Where 
is he? Oh, I see him!" Yes, there he came, swift 
and straight as an arrow, for our stools. Stooping 
low, to be as much out of sight as possible, I drew back 
the hammers of my little gun, determined to make 
3^ drams of powder and an ounce of No. 4 do all they 
could to stop this visitor. In an instant he was over 
the furthest stool. Now steady, was the mental com- 
mand to my nerves, as the gun came to shoulder, and 
eye ranged down the barrels showed them to be about 
a foot ahead. Ah ! now, then ! And there was instant- 
ly a transformation scene, with a bunch of feathers and 
a badly demoralized duck as the central figure : a splash 
in the water and a sigh of relief from C, whose "All 



SEA SHOOTING ON THE ATLANTIC. 429 

right !" convinced me that the gun and myself had done 
our work well this time, at least. 

During this little by-play of our own, the other boats 
had not been idle, as dull, muffled reports from all di- 
rections proved, and that they were meeting with more 
or less success the moving and anchored boats plainly 
showed. For an hour or so this continued. Then all 
of the birds seeming to have found a resting place fur- 
ther out at sea, where they were only occasionally dis- 
turbed by passing vessels, and, as a consequence, not 
giving the shooting that our neighbors seemed to think 
they should, a general movement for the new resting 
place of the ducks commenced. Our host called to us 
as he passed "to come out-shore," an invitation we 
hesitated about accepting, as the wind had increased, 
and the gentle ripple of the morning had given place 
to a decided sea, which certainly must be much larger 
off shore. However, after talking the matter over, we 
decided to follow, and getting in our decoys, com- 
menced going out-shore. Our delay had given the 
other boats a long start, and before we got half way 
out they were among the birds, of which there seemed 
to be thousands. Looking over my shoulder, I could 
see them flying in all directions, some scooting close 
along the water, barely clearing the seas, others high 
overhead, flying in a heedless fashion from one boat to 
another, or hesitating a moment over a bunch of stools, 
and paying for their curiosity by the loss of some of 
their number. 

For an hour or more the shooting continued, bring- 



430 DUCK SHOOTING. 

ing us our share of birds, and at the same time a fair 
share of misses, some of which brought with them 
the plainly expressed disapproval of my companion. 
The wind having increased, and the sea making 
shooting almost impossible, we boated our decoys and 
commenced our journey shoreward, which interesting 
point was at least two miles away in the teeth of the 
wind. An hour's hard work at the oars, sometimes 
only holding our own against the fierce flaws, which 
ever and anon, as if to show their power, would drive 
the spray clean over the boat ; and again, as the force of 
the flaw passed, gaining a few yards, we finally reached 
the bar. Here, taking advantage of the first oppor- 
tunity that the surf offered, we ran through it, and once 
more had Jersey soil under our feet. 



WADING THE MARSHES. 

At various points all over the land — in the marshes 
of the seaboard, of the Middle States, of Illinois, of 
the high central plateau, and of California — is prac- 
ticed what is perhaps the most primitive form of duck 
shooting. Where such marshes are wet, and yet have 
a hard bottom, the gunners wade through them, start- 
ling the ducks from their moist feeding places and 
shooting at them as they top the reeds in their flight. 
The gunning is thus very much like walking up birds on 
a stubble, or snipe on a wet meadow, but it is extremely 



WADING THE MARSHES. 43 1 

laborious, for often the wading is deep, and from time 
to time one steps into a muskrat hole, in which he may 
sink up to his waist, or even deeper. On the other 
hand, the rewards of this toil may be great, since, as it 
is practiced chiefly early in the season, the birds are 
likely to be numerous and many of them so tame and 
unsuspicious that sometimes they do not spring from 
the water until the gunner is within a few feet of them. 

In work such as this a good dog is almost indispensa- 
ble. Unless one has had great practice, the marking 
down of a bird in the grass or reeds is difficult, even if 
it falls close to one, while if a wounded bird scales 
down a long way off, it is practically impossible for the 
gunner to go to the place and find the game. The dog 
should he well broken and should follow at heel, going 
forward only at command and obeying the gestures of 
the hand. If he is so trained he will save his master 
many weary steps and will greatly increase the weight 
of the bag. In no situation is a good dog more useful 
than when one is wading the marsh. 

While this form of shooting is practiced much more 
in wet countries than in dry, it is followed also with 
very good results at certain places in the sage deserts 
of the Rocky Mountains. In that country, water is 
likely to be scarce, and wherever there is a lake with an 
adjoining marsh, there the ducks, grebes, coots, and 
other water birds, gather in great numbers to breed ; 
while added numbers stop during the migrations. 

Many years ago a little party of three or four men 
had occasion to spend some weeks in the neighborhood 



432 DiXK SHOOTING. 

of such a spot in Albany County, Wyoming, and dur- 
ing that time their fresh meat supply was drawn alto- 
gether from the ducks that lived by the marsh. 

The breeding season was over, but the ducks were 
not yet preparing to make their flight southward. They 
had nothing to do now but all day long to dabble and 
rest in the marsh, and accumulate strength and fat for 
the long journey that nuist soon be made. 

Every morning, or every afternoon, for a couple of 
hours, two of the men would start out to kill a few 
ducks for the next day's meals. The weather was 
warm, and they did not attempt to keep dry, but, clad 
in woolen shirts, overalls and shoes, they entered the 
marsh, and usually by the time they had walked its 
length once they had as many birds as could be used 
during the next day. The great black Newfoundland 
dog that belonged to the telegraph operator at the 
neighboring railroad station was a most useful helper 
to them, and brought many of their ducks, but at times 
his excitement got the better of him, and he would 
range the marsh far and wide, scaring up the ducks 
everywhere, and entirely regardless of the remarks 
made by the gunners, although these remarks were 
made in loud tones and were fre(|uently repeated. It 
v/as amusing then to see the gunners come out of the 
marsh and provide themselves with clubs with which 
to punish Bingo, and then to see Bingo, perfectly con- 
scious of his guilt, and quite imwilling to endure the 
punishment, sit-<:lown on the prairie a hundred yards 
off and utterlv refuse to come anv nearer. Often it 



BATTERY SHOOTING. 435 

was the next day before he would venture within arm's 
length of either of the gunners. 

In this marsh were found many sorts of ducks. Mal- 
lards were perhaps the most numerous, and next after 
these came the red-breasted teal. Pintails, shovellers, 
redheads and greenwings were common, and later in 
the season geese were often killed. The gadwall was 
not a common bird. 

On certain marshes in New York State, and no doubt 
elsewhere, when the water is high, marsh shooting- 
similar to this is practiced with a boat, which is shoved 
through the grass and the weeds precisely as the skifif 
of the rail-shooter is shoved through the corngrass or 
wild rice. In bygone years we have seen good bags of 
ducks made in just this way, the gunner standing in 
the bow while the shover moves the boat forward 
quietly through the rustling grass. 

This work of wading the marshes is better practiced 
only in mild weather, since it is practically impossible 
to keep dry while doing it. 



BATTERY SHOOTING. 

The battery is usually set out — "rigged" is the com- 
mon term — in shoal water, from three to six feet in 
most places, although sometimes in the South they are 
put out in much deeper water. When this is done, 
however, the wind may make trouble for the gunner, 



434 DUCK SHOOTING. 

for a battery cannot live in anything like a sea. In 
places like Great South Bay, however, where there 
may be two or three feet of grass on the bottom, and 
then two feet of water over that, a battery can live in 
what is commonly known as a two-reef breeze. This 
is a famous place for battery shooting, and here the 
decoys are commonly set on the water somewhat in 
the shape of a pear. 

The battery lies near the larger end of this pear, and 
to the right-hand side looking toward its smaller end. 
As a result of this mode of rigging — the gunner's head 
being to windward and the stand of decoys being wid-' 
est where he is, and tapering off to a point to leeward — 
the birds, as they come up, will swing to where the de- 
coys are thickest on the water ; that is, to the left of 
the gunner, and will thus always give him an oppor- 
tunity to shoot to the left. Most men shoot from the 
right shoulder, and, of course, this^ arrangement gives 
them the best possible chance. A man who shoots from 
the left shoulder will naturally have his battery on the 
left-hand side of the pear, so that the birds would come 
up to the right, to give him a better opportunity at 
them. 

Usually in the Great South Bay they use about 125 
decoys to a single battery, and perhaps 150 or more to 
a double battery. Of these, twenty-five or more are 
brant decoys, and these are distributed close about the 
battery, so that their larger bodies may in a measure 
conceal it from-the flying birds. There is a single row 
of the brant decoys all about the battery, perhaps seven 



o 
O o 
o « 



o 



O O 



o 6 









« *=• 



O o 



O o o 



o e o 



o 5 O 








o"— 'o 







oj^oo 





^ 



o o o 









THE BATTERY RIGGED. 




SWIVEL GUNS FROM SPESUTIA ISLAND. 



BATTERY SHOOTING. 435 

or eight on either side, and four or five at either end. 
The decoys tail down, as the phrase is, to the point of 
the pear, fifty or sixty yards to leeward, where there 
are only a few, just enough to attract the birds. 

In sinking the battery, a number of cast-iron duck 
decoys, canvas-backs or redheads, weighing twenty-five 
pounds each, are placed on the deck or platform. For 
a double battery, sand bags, weighing about fifty-six 
pounds, are hung by loops on the arms running out 
from the side of the battery. 

The gunner lies on his back in the box, with his gun 
at his right side, the stock near his hand and the muz- 
zle resting on the footboard of the box. Most battery 
men use guns with 32-inch barrels, so that they will be 
long enough to rest on the footboard. A gun with 30- 
inch barrels is likely to slip down into the box. and so 
to be less easily managed. A good many accidents 
have occurred by men using guns that were too short, 
which slipped down into the battery, and. exploding, 
have shot off their feet. 

After his battery is in position, and his decoys are 
tied out, the gunner takes his pluce in the box, lying 
flat on his back, with his head raised by his pillow, or 
headboard, high enough so that his eyes are just above 
the edges of the box. This position enables him to 
watch almost one-half the horizon, looking out over his 
decoys and seeing plainly about 120 degrees of the cir- 
cle. As his head lies to windward, the ducks will, pre- 
sumably, swing over the tail decoys and come up from 
the leeward to alight. As soon as he sees them he 



436 DUCK SHOOTING. 

grasps the gun, which is lying by his side, and at the 
moment when they set their wings to ahght, or when 
they are over the tail decoys, he rises to a sitting pos- 
ture and shoots. The battery man's gun does not com- 
mand a very wide range ; he can shoot to the right only 
so far as he can twist his body, and, in his cramped 
position, this, obviously, is not very far ; but if the birds 
are immediately before him, and if they swing to his 
left, his chance is good. Of course, he has little or no 
opportunity to shoot at birds coming down the wind, 
which will be over him before he sees them. If they are 
disposed to decoy, they will swing and come back to the 
stools; but if, on the other hand, they are going on, he 
will fail to have the shot which, if in a blind, he might 
have had at birds coming from that direction. 

Although the novice in battery shooting is able to 
cover with his gun little more than one-third the circle 
of the horizon, a practiced battery shooter has a much 
wider range for his gun. This he obtains by what is 
called in Chesapeake Bay "throwing out." This means 
that after a man has raised himself to a sitting position, 
if the bird has got off too far on either hand to be eas- 
ily reached by the gun, he throws his legs out of the box 
and onto the platform, or deck, of the battery, so that 
he faces the side of the battery, looking to the right or 
to the left, and is thus able, without difficulty, to shoot 
at birds on either hand. This can be done only by one 
who is at home in the box ; but it greatly increases the 
effectiveness of his shooting. 

After the gunner has taken his position in his box, 



BATTERY SHOOTING. ^2i7 

with gun, ammunition, and such other articles as he 
needs, the sloop in which he and his battery were trans- 
ported to the ground leaves him, and either takes up a 
position well to the leeward, and so far away that by 
no possibility can it interfere with the flight of the 
birds, or else — and this is the more common practice — 
sails about over the waters, directing its course to any 
'body of resting birds that it may see, disturbs them, and 
causes them to take wing, in the hope that in their flight 
they may pass near the decoys about the battery, and 
go to them. It is the part of the tender, also, if the 
shooting is lively, to cruise, at frequent intervals, half 
a mile or a mile to leeward of the gunner, to pick up 
the birds that may be killed The tender must also keep 
a sharp lookout at the battery, so as to obey any signals 
that may be made by the battery-man, and, if called, to 
get to him as speedily as possible. Usually some set of 
signals are arranged, which may save time and effort. 

Commonly, if two men go out to 'jse a single battery, 
they toss up for choice as to who shall first occupy it, 
the first hour after dawn being usually the best for 
shooting. 

Let us imagine the battery-man safely in his box, and 
deserted by his tender. The dim light is beginning to 
show in the east, and the first sounds of coming day are 
to be heard. The distant honking of geese breaks the 
stillness, followed, perhaps, by the wild, laughing cry 
of the loon, or the mellow call of a bunch of old-squaws. 
The faintly musical whistle of the wings of passing 
birds is heard, and, as the light grows, dark streaks, 



438 DUCK SHOOTING. 

looking like clouds, are seen against the yellowing sky, 
showing where the flocks of birds have begun their 
flight. Suddenly, low over the water, and nearly at 
the tail of the decoys, the gunner sees a dark, swiftly 
moving mass, which presently resolves itself into a 
flock of a dozen broadbills, which swing over and 
bunch up to his left, preparing to alight. Just as 
they come together, he sits up in his box, aims well for- 
ward, and a little below the leading ducks, and, at the 
report, three of them fall to the water, while his second 
barrel accounts for two more which crossed, as the flock 
turned to fly away. 

The shot was a fortunate one, for all the birds lie 
still upon the water, and at once begin to drift to lee- 
ward, under the light breeze. Hardly has the gunner 
reloaded, and sunk again to a recumbent posture, when 
he sees, again, to leeward, the swiftly moving wings of 
a single duck, which comes up over the decoys, and. 
with erected head feathers, glances this way and that, 
as if uncertain where to alight, among so many friends. 
Again the gun rings out, and another bird tosses light- 
ly, breast upward, on the water. Blackheads and 
broadbills and tufted ducks are likely to come, through 
the morning, in small bunches or by twos and threes, 
and to give good shooting. 

Beside the birds that come into the stools, many 
hunches will be seen flying high in air — trading birds 
they are called — which pass over without seeming to 
notice the counterfeits upon the water; yet, sometimes, 
these birds, often canvas-backs or redheads, may be 



BATTERY SHOOTING. 439 

called down by an imitation of their note ; and, lower- 
ing their flight, by erratic plunges, will swing about 
two or three times, and, at last, come over the gunner, 
near enough to be shot at. On the whole, however, 
here, as in most other shooting, it is the birds which 
come singly, or in very small groups, which afford the 
greatest sport. A large flock of birds, shot into, are 
thoroughly alarmed, and fly a long way before again 
coming to the water. 

While the gunner is having his sport in the box, his 
tender is working about, not far off, usually keeping 
a cl(^se watch on the battery with his glasses, and also 
on the surface of the water, ])repared to recover any 
dead birds that he may see. Usually a net is carried 
for this purpose, by which the floating birds are lifted 
on board, as well as a gun, to be used in killing cripples. 

Should the weather give signs of being bad, or the 
wind breeze up unduly, the tender draws nearer and 
nearer the battery, for, if a heavy sea springs up, the 
gunner ^vill need prompt assistance. 

Although the modern battery, with its canvas wings, 
keeps down the sea far better than the old-fashioned 
box, with wings formed of boards, still a batter v will 
not live in much of a sea-way. and, as soon as water 
begins to come into the box, the gunner is. at least, 
very uncomfortable, if not in danger of sinking with 
his craft. It is not always easy for the men on board 
the tender to judge just how the battery-man is getting 
on, and, as the breeze increases, and the sea lifts, he is 
anxiouslv watched for any signal. Should it be neces- 



440 DUCK SHOOTING. 

sary to take up, the sloop is anchored close at hand, the 
battery-man, and his possessions, transferred to the 
sloop, and then the men take up the decoys, bring the 
battery alongside, and, rolling up the head fender, take 
it on the sloop's deck. 

During each season, of course, there will be many 
days when the water is so rough that a battery cannot 
live in it, and, on such days, which are usually the best 
for gunning, the battery-man must stay on board his 
sloop. There will be other days, perhaps, when the 
sound is frozen, and it is impossible to tie out in a bat- 
tery. On the whole, therefore, the number of birds 
secured in this manner is not so great as might be sup- 
posed ; but, as stated elsewhere, it is a destructive 
means of shooting, because, usually, the battery is tied 
out on the feeding grounds, and because, commonly, 
the sloop, or sail boat, is constantly moving about, driv- 
ing the birds from their resting places, in the hope 
that they may go to the stools near the battery. Many 
years ago, in Chesapeake Bay, it is recorded, a gunner, 
shooting from a battery, with two guns, killed, in one 
day, over 500 ducks ; and there is a more recent record 
of one man who killed 300 birds in a day. 

Battery shooting is very attractive sport, and, under 
favorable circumstances, yields large bags. 

SHOOTING FROM A HOUSE-BOAT. 

To be practiced successfully, house-boat shooting re- 
quires special conditions, and these conditions exist on 



SHOOTING FROM A HOUSE-BOAT. 44I 

but few waters. The following account, from the 
graceful pen of Mr. Wilmot Townsend, tells how this 
form of sport is enjoyed on Lake Champlain : 

What is a house-boat blind ? Simply a flat-bottomed 
boat with a house thereon, covering three-quarters of 
its length and hidden entirely in cedar boughs, top, 
sides and all around. And so artfully is the cedar ar- 
ranged that the resemblance to a green islet (save for 
its somewhat regular outlines) is complete. 

With tight roof and sides, the interior of this little 
house is a veritable snuggery furnished with bunks, 
table, camp stools, gun rack, shelves for provisions and 
cartridges, and last but not least, a kerosene stove, 
which, when kept properly cleaned and trimmed, will 
give you a smoking hot dinner at short notice. 

And after a day spent in the open air, when the lungs 
are filled to cracking with the pure breeze that filters 
down through the groves of pine and hemlock covering 
the hills, and comes all pungent with balsamic odors, to 
dance about the clear waters of Champlain, "a smoking 
hot dinner," sauced with the ravenous appetite of a 
wolf, is not to be despised. 

The house, occupying three-quarters of the boat's 
length, leaves the bow clear, and here you have ample 
room to stand and with a good field glass may sweep 
the lake in search of fowl. 

A portion of this space is occupied by a roomy and 
comfortable coop for the live decoys, the cedar being 
carried up in front and at the sides to about shoulder 



442 DUCK SHOOTING. 

high, so that the fowl when lured within the "dead 
line," which is the space covered hy an ordinarily strong 
shooting gun, say about 40 yards, are in plain sight 
when you stand erect. 

A flock of ducks approach. Their every movement 
may be watched through sundry little peepholes among 
the twigs as you crouch low with ready gun. 

A moment, and they are within shot. You see the 
bright eyes, the hovering wings, and rising, rouse the 
echoes with both barrels. 

'Tis done! What is done? Why, you have either 
brought sundry ducks to bag or scared them "inside 
out," in which case you will form some idea of what a 
scared duck can do in the way of speed as he buzzes off, 
quacking in terror the while. 

Ducking from a house-boat is the very acme of 
comfort in this ofttimes arduous pursuit. Blow high, 
blow low, you have your cozy cabin, and pleasant it is 
to sit within, puffing a quiet pipe and listening to the 
pouring rain while the storm rages. 

At the first sign of clearing weather, one is literally 
"on deck" for business. 

Fifteen miles from Burlington, Vt., over a good 
road, winding amid ever-changing scenery, you reach 
Sand Bar Bridges, a roadway connecting the mainland 
with Grand Island. 

South and west extend the flats, it being possible to 
walk in some directions here quite a mile from-^shore 
without bringing" the water above knee-deep. 

On these flats the blind was moored, and therein 



SHOOTING FROM A HOUSE-BOAT. 443 

it was my fortunate privilege to spend a few days in 
September. 

To the north and west lay Grand Island, distant 
about three miles. Above its rounding hills and flank- 
ing the lake shore, far as the eye could reach to the 
south, loomed the silent Adirondacks, grand and 
sphinx-like in repose. The play of light and shadow 
gave a wondrous depth of tone to the scene. Even the 
wandering clouds seem to linger with a soft caress 
about the mountain tops, reaching out with long, filmy 
streamers from summit to summit, leaving each slowly, 
regretfully, as though parting with an old friend. 

The use of live decoys was a feature of duck shooting 
that was unfamiliar to me, and I looked forward with 
impatience to the day when Elmer was to initiate me. 
The decoys were sturdy specimens of black duck, 
nearly pure wild blood, and certainly their marking.s 
were exactly similar to those of their wild brethren. If it 
were not for a certain sluggishness of movement, due 
possibly to their having spent the summer in the barn- 
yard among the plebeian ducks and chickens, it would 
be almost impossible to distinguish them from the wary 
thoroughbreds that frequent the lake. 

The manner of working with them is as follows : A 
small platform, or log, is placed some 20 yards from the 
blind in front, its top just flush with the surface of the 
water, 

A decoy is tethered by a string to a peg firmly thrust 
into the hard sand of the flats, about 6 feet distant, the 
string being just long enough to allow of the decoy 



444 DUCK SHOOTING. 

reaching the platform, where it will stand and preen its 
feathers, quacking meanwhile with energy at every 
passing bird, or in more subdued tones holding converse 
with its companions in the coop on the blind. 

Th$ live decoy occupies the apex of a triangle, the 
sides being strung with the ordinary wooden decoys in 
greater or less numbers as inclination may suggest, al- 
though the squawking of this feathered siren makes a 
large display unnecessary. 

When a flock of ducks appear, her calls seldom fail 
to attract their attention, and as she stands upon the 
little platform she shows up in such fine form that they 
generally turn to investigate. 

And now Elmer will take a decoy from the coop, 
crouching low as he grasps it firmly w^ith both hands. 
A quick toss sends it high in air above the blind, where 
with noisy expostulation it presently sails down with 
outspread wings and joins its tethered mate. This 
manceuvre rarely fails to decide the action of the wild 
birds. They either at once set their wings and swiftly 
scale in to the decoys, or, circling a few times, alight, 
and after consulting together, swim up within range of 
the leaden death that is lurking within the cedars of 
the blind. 

Should they act as though suspicious, the judicious 
tossing of a few more decoys will settle it, and it is curi- 
ous to see the air of fearlessness which now pervades 
the flock as they swim rapidly up. 

It often happens that several bunches of ducks will 
swim in from different directions at the same time, and 



SHOOTING FROM A HOUSE-BOAT. 445 

then it is a pleasure to see the careful way in which the 
decoys are handled. 

No tossing now. Instead, a decoy is quietly pushed 
through between the cedars on the opposite side to the 
blind, and quacking loudly with a sense of freedom, it 
hurries to its chums, who are already disporting them- 
selves about the little platform of this tethered occu- 
pant. With bated breath we peep through the boughs 
at the approaching fowl. Not a sound is made by us as 
they come in ; a look is all that is required. It says : 
**Are you ready?" A wink answers "Yes," and rising, 
we cut loose. 

Not waiting to see what execution has been done, 
each grasps a spare gun, and again we stop a couple as 
they cross in wild affright, "doin' stunts," says Elmer. 

With the clearing away of the fog of burned powder, 
we see eleven ducks scattered here and there waiting to 
be gathered, and wading out we attend to them. 

But what of the live decoys ? During all this excite- 
ment they have been huddled in a compact bunch near 
the little platform and are now unconcernedly swim- 
ming about among the dead and dying. 

I go to the blind, raise the sliding door of the coop, 
and Elmer walking behind them, our duck assistants 
swim to the gangway and waddle up into the coop in a 
matter-of-fact manner that is laughable. 

Fully plumed for flight, not hampered in any way, 
the idea that they are free to go never seems to enter 
their silly heads. Once in a while they will leave for 
parts unknown, but this seldom occurs. 



446 DUCK SHOOTING. 

In the use of live decoys it is found of great advan- 
tage in accustoming tliem to their duties, to have a few 
well-trained, older birds, whose example is quickly fol- 
lowed by the younger members of the flock. 

It is very necessary to take pains at the outset in the 
arrangement of the little board or gangway which leads 
up from the water to the coop in the blind. The incline 
must be easy, so that at the first attempt on the part of 
the decoys to enter they will find no difficulty in com- 
fortably ascending. If too steep an incline, they are 
likely to slip and flutter clumsily in the effort to regain 
footing, and ever after will hesitate to make the at- 
tempt, swimming and dodging about the blind until 
finally driven in. 

This, of course, is very annoying and seriously inter- 
feres with the results of a day's sport. With proper 
attention to these details, however, there appears to be 
little trouble afterward, and certainly to one who finds 
something of interest in the accessories of duck shoot- 
ing, and whose entire enjoyment of a shooting trip is 
not confined to the mere killing of game, the working 
with live decoys is extremely interesting. 

In selecting a decoy to tether out as a caller, a female 
should always be taken, as she has the well-known lo- 
quacity of her sex in general, and proves, as with 
human beings, a greater attraction than the male. The 
drakes are rarely tethered, being reserved for tossing 
into the air. 

In calm weather, when the fowl are not moving 
about, the door of the coop may be raised, and the whole 



ICE HOLE SHOOTING. 447 

flock will go out and disport themselves, romping and 
playing tag as it were, having a big time generally for 
an hour or so, returning of their own volition when 
ready. In giving them liberty, as above, always see to 
it that one of their number is tethered, as they are then 
less likely to stray. With regular feeding and plenty 
of exercise, a decoy will keep in excellent condition the 
season through. There is amusement in watching 
their many antics. For instance, one habit they have is 
to pitch into the decoy that has just been released from 
its tether, the instant it is returned to the coop, and the 
scramble that regularly takes place on these occasions 
is ludicrous, each one trying to thump the luckless indi- 
vidual and all squawking and tumbling about the coop 
in wild confusion. 

Why they should wish to vent such spite is beyond 
my comprehension, but such is the case, and at each 
change of decoys the scene is repeated with never-fail- 
ing regularity. When fowl are moving, the sport from 
such a blind is fine, as they come right up until one can 
see their eyes twinkle. 



ICE HOLE SHOOTING. 

It is well understood that there are a number of spe- 
cies of ducks which do not migrate so long as there is 
open water in which they can feed. On many streams 
in the Rocky Mountains, where there is rough and tur- 



448 DUCK SHOOTING. 

biilent water caused by rapids, or where warm springs 
breaking out under the bank, or from the bottom, keep 
the water open through the winter, great numbers of 
wildfowl remain from autumn until spring, although 
the temperature often falls to twenty or thirty degrees 
below zero, or even to the point where mercury freezes. 

In many places in the Middle West, the mallards 
seem loath to move southward, and do not go until all 
the marshes and streams are frozen, so that feeding is 
no longer possible for them. There are sloughs and 
rivers where the current or the springs from the bot- 
tom keep open what are called air-holes, long after the 
frost has sealed up the waters in general, and to such 
open places the late-staying ducks continue to resort in 
considerable numbers after their more tender fellows 
have taken their departure to warmer climes. So long 
as such open water is accessible it will continue to give 
food to the ducks, but gradually the area of the air- 
holes becomes more and more contracted, until at last 
the ice wholly covers them, and then the birds are 
obliged to move onward. 

The gunner who is fortunate enough to find one of 
these air-holes is quite sure to have good shooting for a 
short time, and if there are several of them in the neigh- 
borhood, so that the birds can pass from one to another, 
he will have many opportunities at single birds and 
small bunches, from which he should get a good bag 
during the day. 

It is, of course, well understood by every experienced 
gunner that if, on approaching a place such as this. 



ICE HOLE SHOOTING. 449 

many ducks are found, he should drive them away with- 
out shooting at them, in order that a Httle later they 
may return in small companies and give him many 
shots, whereas, if he fired at the main flock when he 
first discovered them, they would be seriously fright- 
ened, and would disappear not to return for a long time. 
An account of shooting of this sort, written some 
3^ears ago, for Forest and Stream, by a correspondent 
signing himself G. L. R., is given here : 

Late in the fall, or very early in the spring, very ex- 
cellent shooting may be had at times in ice holes. These 
holes are found in running water, or at what are gener- 
ally known as air-holes. When the weather has been 
cold, and all the prairie ponds are frozen, driving the 
ducks from open land to timber, they naturally seek 
for water wherever it may be found. They fly through 
the timber and over the trees in constant search for 
open water — places where experience had heretofore 
taught them that water and feed could be found in 
plenty. Their flight is slow, their search thorough, 
and they are not unrewarded, for they find a spot where 
water may be had. 

When they find a place like this, they alight in great 
numbers. The quantity lighting in the hole depends 
on the number of them coming. This hole, like an om- 
nibus, always has room for one more. After the hole 
is filled they become generous, and wishing to make 
room for fresh arrivals, they crawl out and sit on the 
ice, quacking vigorously, or, with craws distended with 



450 DUCK SHOOTING. 

corn, fruits of the last overland trip, sit on the ice 
preening themselves and sleeping the time away. Their 
loud calls vibrate and course through the still woods, 
carrying welcDme music to the alert ears of the hunter. 

He marks the direction, and stealthily proceeds to 
locate them. Then some noisy duck, having partaken 
too freely of corn, and feeling the effects of its fermen- 
tation, raises her voice so loudly that he marks the spot 
where they are located. He shows his open palm to his 
dog, and thus conveys to him warning for great cau- 
tion. The dog understands this signal and crouches 
close to the earth. Those two friends stand silently 
behind a projecting tree, the gunner debating in his 
mind whether to step boldly out and rout the birds or 
attempt by crawling to get a sitting shot. He decides 
on the former, and when he steps out in open sight is 
seen, and, with a grand roar that fills the woods with 
its volume, the birds arise in fright, and in pairs and 
flocks, both great and small, fly away. The dog looks 
askance at his master, questioning the propriety of rout- 
ing such an immense flock without firing a shot, but a 
reassuring pat on the head and he silently acquiesces in 
the judgment of his master. 

The ducks are loath to leave a place like this, and 
soon begin to return — they will not keep out. Coolly 
the hunter knocks them right and left ; the dog is in an 
ecstasy of delight. Constant exercise has caused his 
blood to rush through his veins. He comes and goes 
in and out of the-water, his brown coat glistening with 
ice, forming brilliant beads in the sunlight ; then he 



ICE HOLE SHOOTING. 45 1 

marks the course of a wing-tipped drake as it tries 
hard to follow the flock and falls one or two hundred 
yards from the shooter. Away he goes over ridges, 
brushpiles and frozen sloughs, and soon returns, the 
drake in his strong jaws, its good wing beating against 
his nose, and delivers it to his master. 

When a man finds a place like this, he has found a 
mine which is inexhaustible for that day. If he intends 
staying in the neighborhood, he should hunt some other 
place similar to this, hunt them on alternate days, and 
his shooting will be good each day. It is advisable to 
scatter corn in the hole and around the edges on the ice, 
but plenty in the hole if the water is shallow. The birds 
will soon discover this, and come often ; and, if the hun- 
ter is a good shot, will tarr}^ long. As'fast as killed, set 
up the dead ducks for decoys ; keep on until you have a 
good-sized flock. No fear of having too many — the 
more the better. 

In building a blind, advantage must be taken of lo- 
cality. If m timber, secrete yourself well, with a good 
open place to shoot through. Better have an indifl^erent 
blind with a good place to shoot through than one 
where you find you cannot shoot without interference 
of limbs. Should you find the shooting must be had 
in an exposed pond or river, where a shore blind cannot 
be made, your ingenuity will be taxed to hide yourself, 
and you must depend as much on quietness and patience 
as on a blind. Should the ice be strong enough to bear 
you, build a wall ten or twelve inches high of ice or 
snow to conceal you. A little hay. a rubber blanket 



452 DUCK SHOOTING. 

spread over it, cover yourself with a white cloth, wait 
patiently; it's a splendid place for contemplation, espe- 
cially if the thermometer registers down ahont zero. 
You can drive away the coldness by thinking about 
Turkish baths, straw-berries and cream, and the church 
sociables you enjoyed last summer. 

One writer, speaking of ice hole shooting, says a 
good way to build a blind is: "Take at barrel, chop a 
hole through the ice so the barrel will slip through, nail 
pieces of scantling on the sides of the barrel, fill the bar- 
rel with water until it sinks down far enough, then bail 
the water out, first cutting narrow edges through the 
ice, push the scantlings dowai, give them a half twist, 
and they will hold the barrel wdiere wanted. Put in 
hay and push snow against the sides and top of the bar- 
rel to hide it, and the blind is complete." No doubt this 
would work, but it would hardly pay to go to so much 
trouble. The only good way is to shoot from the shore, 
as first mentioned ; any other manner has drawbacks 
that will more than offset the pleasure derived. 

Never take any chances in trying to get duck shoot- 
ing around ice. Better not get a shot than attempt to 
get to some place w-here there is a flight, and then take 
chances of breaking in. If you haven't a boat or a good 
dog, and know you cannot get the dead birds without 
retrieving them yourself over ice that might be weak; 
turn your back to that hole and walk away ; you have no 
right to take any such chance, and no wise man will do 
it. Death by drowning is said to be an easy death. If, 
then, you prefer death in this way, choose summer- 



WINTER SHOOTING ON LAKE ONTARIO. 453 

time ; the water will feel decidedly more pleasant and 
flowers are much cheaper. 



WINTER DUCK SHOOTING ON LAKE ONTARIO. 

That duck shooting is hard work and entails much 
exposure and suffering and danger, is a saying so fa- 
miliar that it has passed almost into a proverb. Not 
infrequently we hear of men having been drowned or 
frozen to death while duck shooting late in the season, 
and cases of actual suffering are common. A form of 
sport in which there is much exposure and sometimes 
not a little danger is practiced at different points on the 
Great Lakes in winter, and the methods pursued are 
well described by Mr. Olin B. Coit, of Oswego, N. Y., 
in the following article contributed by him to Forest 
and Stream in the year 1895. He says : 

Methods of hunting the same kind of game differ 
with the location and the season. There is no mode of 
ducking that is so novel or attended with greater dis- 
comfort and danger than winter shooting on Lake On- 
tario. The ducks that make their homes in these icy 
waters are whistlers, broadbills, coots, sheldrakes and 
old-wives. The three latter kinds are fish ducks and 
on the coast are strong and inferior in flavor, for they 
there live on fish and sea food. But the lake usually 
furnishes each autumn several cargoes of barley and 



454 DUCK SHOOTING. 

wheat that are wrecked and scattered along its shores. 
Thither the ducks congregate, and after man}^ weeks' 
feeding on the water-soaked grain their flesh becomes 
fat and fine-flavored. 

They feed with ease in water that is twelve to fifteen 
feet deep, diving to the bottom and remaining under 
water an incredil)le time. It is often amusing to shoot 
at one or two ducks s\\imming about, and the next in- 
stant to see the water broken in all directions by the 
birds popping up from underneath, where they have 
been breakfasting. Now is the time for alertness, for 
if the gunners are busy enough they may slaughter 
nmny before they have made a change of elements. 

Ice forms in the shoal water many yards from the 
shore. Anchor ice and frozen spray are piled upon this 
iu wi'ld confusion, until it looks like the surface of a 
glacier, with hillocks and crevasses. Frequently spout 
holes are formed, out of which the water, forced up- 
ward by the waves dashing underneath, leaps for many 
feet into the air, and freezing as it falls, forms a cone 
like those in the crater of a volcano. 

The outer edge of this ice reef is formed into a line 
of ice cliffs and battlements containing caves of won- 
drous beauty and little coves and fjords like a miniature 
Norway coast line. 

The hunters are clad in garments of white duck,, 
white caps covering the hair, and white masks. Even 
white covers are used for the guns. The'se are ar- 
ranged to be easily slipped ofif when the time of action 
arrives. An excavation is made on the edge of the ice, 



SHOOTING IN THE ICE. 455 

in which the hunters are to conceal themselves. The 
decoys are anchored at a convenient distance, and the 
boat, drawn into a little cove of the ice, is covered with 
a white cloth. One does not have to wait long for a 
shot, as the ducks fly in great numbers. The cold is 
often intense, and the frozen spray stiffens the clothing 
and covers everything with an icy armor. A wind 
break of blocks of ice is often an absolute necessity. 
But, despite cold and discomfort, it is sport, and every- 
thing goes. 

Large numbers of ducks are shot in this way, hi'i not 
all the slain are retrieved, for the launching of a boat in 
the wintry seas is a dangerous operation and a capsize 
is something to be carefully avoided. 



SHOOTING IN THE ICE. 

On many of our northern streams, when the ice 
breaks up in the spring, and even during a thaw in win- 
ter, ducks are frequently found searching for feeding 
grounds that have not already been exhausted. In 
such places, fairly good gunning can be had by men 
who are willing to work hard, and to endure discom- 
forts of cold and wet. Mild, still weather is desirable 
for work of this kind ; while usually, of course, the 
worse the weather the better for ducking. The boat 
used for this is either a low, flat-decked ducking boat, 
or something in the nature of a Barnegat sneak-boat, 



456 DUCK SHOOTING. 

which, though a httle larger>and more conspicuous, has 
the great advantage of being mucli more roomy. The 
boat should be painted white, to resemble the ice, and it 
is common for the gunners to wear white canvas coats 
and white caps. Ducks are looked for in the likely 
places among the floating ice, and along feeding 
grounds close to the shore, if any such are bare. 

When birds are discovered, the oars are shipped, and 
the boat is sculled or paddled very slowly and cau- 
tiously up to the ducks. If the work is properly done 
the birds wall not lift their heads to look at the boat. 
In this work frequent advantage may be taken of the 
floating cakes of ice, which will cover the approach of 
the boat, and even if there is no such cover as this, a 
good sculler may often get within easy gunshot. When 
this is done, the gunner usually takes one shot at the 
birds on the water, and another as they rise ; and pos- 
sibly, if he has a spare gun, and the birds are confused, 
as they often are, he may even get tw'o more barrels in. 
Then follow^s the work of shooting over the cripples, 
which should be done at once, as it is very easy to lose 
birds under such conditions. The ducks most com- 
monlv captured in this w^ay are black ducks, whistlers, 
pintails, and sometimes redheads. 

This sport necessitates much hard w^ork, but the re- 
ward of a few birds fully compensates the gunner for 
his efforts. 

Much more destructive than this prowling about in 
the rivers for srnall bunches of ducks, is that practiced 
during the spring migration at the mouths of some of 



SHOOTING IN THE ICE. 457 

the larger rivers, notably the Delaware. In this, large 
guns are used, and the sport is practiced chiefly by 
market" gunners, who ship their game to Philadelphia 
daily. 

Concerning this method of killing ducks, the late 
C. S. Wescott, of Philadelphia, wrote many years ago : 

I knew of but two or three amateurs that resfularlv 
indulged in this sport, and had always looked on it as a 
murderous method of wildfowling. The tales of my 
enthusiastic friends, however, led me to make trial of 
it, and I engaged the services of one of the most noted 
professional paddlers who followed the river. This 
was in the month of March. 

Owing to the great amount of ice that had formed 
that year on the tributaries of the Delaware and the 
upper river during the winter, and the sudden breaking 
up, I believed that we should have good shooting, for 
already the fowl had been reported from below as hav- 
ing arrived. The continued drifting of huge masses 
and fields of ice at each ebb and flow of the tide, and the 
extensive bodies of ice collected on the flats of the New 
Jersey and Delaware shores from Marcus Hook to 
Bombay Hook, made ice shooting more dangerous that 
spring than it had been for many years. 

The skiffs used for this description of duck shooting 
are light, double-end, fifteen-foot, clinker-built boats, 
such as rail are shot from, but are somewhat strength- 
ened by being sheathed with copper where the surfaces 
are presented to the floating ice, and are also provided 



458 DUCK SHOOTING. 

with narrow runners on the bottom ; for often it may 
become necessary to haul the skiff up onto the ice, and 
to use it as a sledge over the great ice fields that fre- 
quently surround the shooter. From stem to stern 
everything is painted white, and a netting is hung along 
the bows for four or five feet down the gunwales on 
both sides, in which to place pieces of ice to form a blind 
for the shooter as he is being paddled on a flock of 
ducks. The occupants of the skifif thus hidden, and 
clad in white and with white cap covers, can hardly be 
distinguished from the drifting ice. A reliable compass 
is always carried, for the frequent fogs that hang over 
the river often obscure the shores. A strong field glass 
is also needed. 

Thus fitted out, John Brown and I launched our skiff 
on the ice at a point on the nxtv near Marcus Hook, 
for we could not find open water higher up. For guns, 
we had a single-barrel four-gauge piece, from which at 
each discharge were shot three or four ounces of No. 4 
or 5 shot ; a ten-pound ten-gauge gun, and a seven and 
a half pound twelve-bore, for shooting over "cripples." 

I confess that I felt some fear of the hummocks of 
ice that at once threatened us, as soon as we had pushed 
our boat over the grounded ice and reached the open 
water, but the coolness and business-like demeanor of 
my paddler reassured me, and I placed myself at the 
oars under his direction, while he faced me in the stern 
with a helping paddle. 

Difficulties soon began to present themselves, as the 
tide ebbed stronger. Immense fields and blocks of ice 



SHOOTING IN THE ICE. 459 

came tearing and grinding up against the grounded 
masses on the flats, and, completely shutting up the 
channel, bore down on us, threatening to crush our frail 
craft in the general rush and onward drift. Fending 
off the dangerous pieces with our hooks, we finally 
hauled the skiff up on a huge cake and felt compara- 
tively safe as we floated down the river toward Penns- 
ville, N. J., looking for open water where we might use 
our oars. 

All prospect for shooting for the day was now over, 
as the mush ice at this point kept the ducks away, and 
it became apparent that the great body of fowl were to 
be found lower down the river, whither in the morn- 
ing we must direct our course. On our ice island we 
floated down the stream until within sight of Penns- 
ville pier, extending into the river, against which the 
ice was jamming, and where there was every probabil- 
ity that we would be crushed, unless we sought safety 
on the stationary ice, which still remained on the shoal 
borders of the stream. An opportunity for reaching 
this ice soon presented itself, and hooking to it, we 
pulled the boat safely up, and parted with our friendly 
cake, which went on to its destruction. We were now 
a full mile from a hotel, which we could only reach by 
sledging the skiff, and it was four o'clock before we 
were on terra fir ma. 

At Pennsville Hotel we found three other duck- 
shooters, with their men, who had been driven in, as we 
had, by the thick ice. 

Next morning a heavy fog hung over the river, add- 



460 DUCK SHOOTING. 

ing some danger to the shooting, as the shore could not 
be distinguished seventy-five yards from the skiff. 
Brown and myself were the only two that started out, 
and we first took careful bearings by compass. 

A mile below Pennsville, the ducks could be heard 
talking, as they drifted on the ice as it floated down 
stream, and directing our course by the sound, 1 was 
soon paddled up within range of a good-sized flock as I 
lay in the bottom of the boat waiting the signal to fire 
the big gun. 

I dislike to recall the effect of that shot, or to remem- 
ber the number of ducks slaughtered. It is enough to 
say that I killed and crippled many, and was obliged to 
"over shoot" numerous wounded ones. The huge gun 
had boxed me soundly, but I now think I deserved to 
have been kicked into the water. During the day we 
found sprigtails and mallards in abundance, and I was 
taken cleverly to them by my skillful paddler. Perhaps 
then I thought that I was having great sport, and truly 
I was killing many birds, but I have never since been 
satisfied with the skiff-load of ducks we took to shore, 
and after this trip never repeated my ice-shooting ex- 
perience. 

SAILING. 

Sailing dowm on wildfowl can, of course, only be 
practiced on large bodies of water, and in many States 
is forbidden by law, as it should be in all. 

As most fowl are oblis:ed to rise from the water 



STUBBLE SHOOTING, 461 

against the wind, it is possible sometimes to sail down 
on them before the wind, and to get so close to them be- 
fore they take wing that when they rise a shot is of- 
fered. Most birds will not permit so near an approach 
as this, and those chiefly killed in this way are the salt- 
water scoters and old-squaws. At the same time, we 
have seen geese and swans sailed up to, and occasionally 
killed. But this is quite unusual. 

The practice is a very evil one, since it amounts to 
chasing the birds about continually, and after a certain 
amount of this pursuit, they become exceedingly wild, 
and are likely to desert the waters where this is prac- 
ticed. To my mind, there is no sport in this, and it de- 
serves mention only as one method by which ducks are 
killed. In certain waters of New York, and some other 
States, birds are approached somewhat in this way by 
steam or naphtha launches, and some shooting is had ; 
but this method of killing ducks is open to the same ob- 
jections as sailing, and ought not to be practiced or to 
be permitted. Any method of shooting ducks which 
gives them the impression that they are being chased 
about is open to objection and should not be practiced. 
The results can never justify the injury certain to be 
done to the shooting. 



STUBBLE SHOOTING. 

In portions of the Northwest, such as North Dakota 
and Manitoba, and in fact in many wheat-growing 



462 DUCK SHOOTING. 

countries, ducks are shot in the stuhhle fields. In the 
spring of the year, mallards, pintails, widgeons and 
teal very commonly resort to the wheat fields to feed. 
Indeed, the mallards and the pintails make regular 
morning and evening flights, just as the geese do, and, 
like the geese, can be depended on to come. 

In the autumn, however, the shooting in the stubble 
fields depends largely on the season. If the fall has 
been very wet, tlie mallards resort to the wheat fields 
by thousands, but other ducks seldom put in an ap- 
pearance. If the fields contain pools of water, the birds 
will come in regularly in the morning and in the even- 
ing. On the other hand, if the fields are dry, the birds 
are likely to feed chiefly at night, coming into the fields 
just at dusk, remaining during the night, and return- 
ing in the early morning to the sloughs, where they 
spend the day. If very much shot at in the stubbles, 
they will give up feeding during the day and resort to 
the fields at night only. Of course, now and then a bird 
may come in the afternoon, but nine-tenths of them 
come in at night. 

In shooting ducks in the stubble the same methods 
are used as in shooting geese, but the ducks decoy much 
more easily than geese. 

Blinds are of course required, and the best blind is a 
pit such as geese are shot from. In the spring of the 
year, however, when the ground is frozen to a con- 
siderable depth, and a great deal of labor is required to 
make a pit, other blinds are often prepared. Thus low 
places in the field will have the stalks of pig weeds still 



STUBBLE SHOOTING. 463 

Standing, and from these a good natural blind can be 
made. In other places grain will have lodged, and, if 
the stalks can be straightened up, this makes an excel- 
lent blind. Or, again, if one has patience to do it, a 
straw pile may be made in a part of the field where the 
birds are feeding, and a blind be made in that, and if 
not used for a few days, until the birds become accus- 
tomed to the straw, capital shooting may be had from it. 

The pit is the best blind. It can be made to look so 
natural that the birds come in without the slightest 
suspicion, and it is very much more roomy and com- 
fortable than any other blind. A man lying flat on his 
back in a shallow furrow has really only a limited 
range for his gun, and whether one is on his back, his 
knees or his face, it is hard to get up and put the gun 
on the birds in time. 

Mr. Ned Cavileer describes a pit which he uses. It 
is only about twelve inches deep, long enough to lie 
down in, and is lined with boards to keep the dirt from 
falling in. The boards are carefully fitted and are held 
in place by hooks and staples, or sometimes three of 
the boards may be hinged together, so as to close up 
and be convenient for carrying. There are two boards, 
one each for the head and foot, and two for the sides. 

On the stubbles, mallards seem ready to decoy to 
almost anything. Goose decoys are better than ducks, 
because they are larger and can be seen at a great dis- 
tance. Mallards will come readily to snow-goose de- 
coys. The pintail also readily comes to goose decoys, 
and no others are needed. 



464 DUCK SHOOTING. 



CALIFORNIA MARSH SHOOTING. 

Within a comparatively sliort distance from San 
Francisco are great marshes bordering the bay, and 
there are others at the junction of the Sacramento and 
the San Joaquin rivers with Suisun Bay. These are of 
great extent, that known as the Suisun Marsh being 
about twenty miles long by ten wide, and a great re- 
sort for snipe and wild fowl. This marsh was long ago 
taken up and is under lease to shooting clubs, who hold 
all the land. 

The two principal forms of shooting practiced here 
are pond shooting, over decoys from a blind, and a 
form of floating practiced by sculling a boat along the 
narrow sloughs and leads which thread the marsh in 
every direction. 

The ponds on which the shooting takes place vary in 
size from small mallard holes and mud puddles to con- 
siderable pools covering several acres. The different 
ponds are connected by artificial ditches with the neigh- 
boring sloughs, and sometimes the ponds are connected 
in the same way. It is stated that in such ponds grows 
the vallisneria, which is so favorite a food with all our 
ducks. 

To such ponds resort swans, geese, and ducks of 
many kinds. The shooting in such places does not 
especially differ from such shooting elsewhere. The 
gunner builds a blind of reeds and grass, and either sits 
in the marsh, or, if that is too soft, he may sit in his 



IN CALIFORNIA MARSHES. 465 

boat. Great numbers of fowl are killed annually, for 
here the shooting lasts for five months or more. It is 
a wintering ground where the fowl come to stay, and 
being so extensive, it is possible to change the gunning 
grounds frequently, and so to keep the shooting good. 

In the narrow leads which intersect the marsh, scull- 
ing is done in a boat of peculiar construction, which 
has been evolved by the gunners on these marshes, and 
is built only by them. They are speedy vessels which 
can be propelled very swiftly by a long, flexible sculling 
oar, and their advance is absolutely noiseless, so that 
the skillful sculler can approach very close to the fowl. 
As the boats are built for use by a single man only, the 
gunner sculls and shoots as well. 

Besides the fowl shooting to be had here, there are 
many patches of snipe marsh, over which, in the dull 
hours of the day, the gunner can tramp with not a 
little benefit to his bag. 

Some notion of the abundance and variety of wild- 
fowl found in the California marshes may be had from 
an account which is printed here substantially as it ap- 
peared in Forest and Stream in the year 1882. It 
treats of the abundance of birds in the marshes near 
the head of Suisun Bay, the extreme northern end of 
San Francisco Bay. 

Phantom Pond, though within fifty miles of the city 
of San Francisco, had, up to that time, been shot on 
by very few men. A great many persons knew of the 
existence of the pond, but as it was small, and was situ- 
ated on an island some fifteen miles long by from one to 



466 DUCK SHOOTING. 

fi\e miles wide, it was exceedingly difficult to find it in 
this marsh unless one knew just where to go. The 
writer of the account had made three previous efforts 
to find the place, and was only now, at his fourth at- 
tempt, successful. The journey to the marsh was made 
in a yacht, and the island was reached after various 
adventures. The writer, using the pseudonym "Duck 
Call," goes on to say : 

About two o'clock Friday afternoon we came to an- 
chor, and then we landed with three boats — one for the 
pond, if we should find it, one for the slough which 
was on the island, and one to ply between the yacht and 
the shore. Our first move was to haul two boats over 
a narrow strip of land to the island slough, which feat 
we were not long in accomplishing, and were soon row- 
ing along the slough with our boats loaded w'ith de- 
coys, ammunition, etc. 

My instructions were to row south along this 
slough about half a mile, and then to land and strike 
out directly east, and I would find the pond. Now, the 
next question, how to judge a half-mile on this narrow, 
winding slough, which had a generally southerly di- 
rection. We kept on rowing until we came to an al- 
most impassable obstacle in the shape of an immense 
pile of drift tule, wood, etc., which completely blocked 
the slough from bank to bank, so we decided that we 
had rowed a mije ; at least, we did not intend to carry 
over or around the mass of drift and stuff before us. 
So, landing on the east bank, we tied -both boats, and 



IN CALIFORNIA MARSHES. 467 

after walking out of the very high rushes which bor- 
dered the slough, we shoved an oar into the ground and 
tied a handkerchief to it to mark the place where we 
had left the boats. This was a very necessary opera- 
tion, as we would otherwise never find our boats again 
on account of the similarity of the rushes. Separating 
about fifty yards apart, we started to look for what I 
was inclined to think was a phantom pond. We walked 
and we walked ; the sun was hot ; the ground was 
mushy and the tules high ; but no signs of a pond. Soon 
after we had left the boats we had come to another 
slough, and had followed it to the right. After walk- 
ing along the bank about two miles, I should judge, 
and meeting other sloughs, we retraced our steps, tired 
and disgusted, and we had lain down to rest just at the 
point where we had first struck the slough we had been 
following. 

We had hardly been lying there more than a minute 
or two when one of us noticed two swans flying toward 
us — nothing very extraordinary, as we had seen a 
great number of swans and plenty of ducks and geese 
flying around us all day. But these two swans passed 
us about three hundred yards to the right, and then set 
their wings and soon after lit about five hundred yards 
away. We had seen a great many birds alighting in 
this same spot, but there always seemed to be a slough 
separating us from the place, and our instructions were 
not to cross any slough after rowing on the first one. 
We jumped to our feet and both seemed struck with the 
same idea, at the same instant, and, sure enough, we had 



N 



468 DUCK SHOOTING. 

not walked more than two hundred yards when we 
commenced to hear the pecuhar noise which a large 
flock of wildfowl make while feeding in a pond — that 
is, a continued splash from their unceasing diving. Our 
excitement was such that we both hurried along, and 
soon a beautiful pond stretched out before us, just com- 
pletely covered with wildfowl of every description. 
Instead of crawling up cautiously, as we should have 
done, we advanced in too much of a hurry, and let go 
our four barrels at the nearest of the immense flock. 
And then for a moment what a noise, a rush, splash, 
and whirr of wings. I never saw its like in my life, 
and hardly ever expect to see it again. 

We had disturbed a wildfowls' sanctum. It was a 
sight to make a sportsman — well, I was going to say 
crazy, as we were so excited we hardly knew which way 
to start. The ducks, after their first fright, commenced 
to come back, and some even wheeled after flying not 
more than fifty or a hundred yards, and we shot and 
shot till most of our cartridges had gone, as we had left 
all but a few with our traps and decoys, with the boats. 
We then stood up and took a survey of our situation. 
We found the pond to be nearly circular, and 150 yards 
in diameter, and the slough which we had been follow- 
ing ran into the pond, so if we had followed it to the 
left instead of to the right we would have soon come to 
the pond. 

Our flag and boats were in a direct line about 350 
or 400 yards from us, so taking off our coats, and leav- 
ing our guns at the pond, we started for the boats to 



IN CALIFORNIA MARSHES. 469 

drag the pon'd boat, full of decoys, to the pond. We 
were not long in doing this, as we were in a hurry to 
get back to the pond, and as the sun was approaching 
the western horizon we were all fixed in our separate 
blinds, with the decoys out, and shooting as fast as we 
could wish. 

It being a moonlight night, we stayed at the pond 
until about half-past seven, and then started back to 
the yacht, having first hauled the pond boat out of sight 
in the tule. Then, after getting our game together, we 
looked at it, and then at each other, and then came the 
question, how were we ever to get that load of game to 
the yacht. Among the pile were five immense Cana- 
dian geese, about three of which are all one man 
wishes to carry. We also had about one dozen white 
geese, a swan, and ducks, I was going to say innumer- 
able. Well, we compromised. We first drew all the 
birds, which considerably lightened the load, and then 
each took a sack, which the decoys had been in, and 
filled them with the best ducks ; the rest, with all our 
traps, except our guns and empty cartridge bags, we 
stowed in the boat and covered with rushes for the next 
day. We each then shouldered his sack and started for 
our white flag, which we soon reached, and then, after 
a short row, arrived at the narrow strip of land which 
separated us from the yacht. We were soon aboard, 
and after supper, to which we did ample justice, we 
lost no time getting to bed, so as to be up and off long 
before daylight. 

It seemed to me that I had hardly been asleep more 



470 DUCK SHOOTING. 

than ten minutes when the whirr of the alarm clock 
told us that it was time to turn out. We had to 
go home during the next night, so we decided to make 
one long hunt from early dawn to late at night. Just 
before sitting down to breakfast I went on deck, and 
found it very cold. A heavy, thick fog had settled 
dow^n on everything, dampening all but our spirits. 
After breakfast we took every cartridge we could get 
hold of, and started for the grounds, with instructions 
to one of the men to join us about four in the afternoon 
and help us out with some of the game. The boat was 
found in the slough as we had left it the night before, 
and after rowing along till we cam6 to our landing, we 
tied our boat and started for the pond. The fog w^as 
so thick that we could get no bearings, and having no 
compass, the first thing w-e knew^ we were lost. VVe 
w^alked first north, and then south, and then east, and 
found no pond. There was nothing but high rushes 
and mudholes and sloughs. We .tried to retrace our 
steps, but got more bewildered than before, and at 
about eleven o'clock we sat down and waited for the 
fog to lift. At twelve o'clock the fog rolled away, and 
we found that we had been completely turned around 
and evidently been wandering in a circle, as we found 
ourselves within two hundred yards of our flag. We 
immediately struck out for the pond, which we soon 
reached, very tired from carrying so many cartridges, 
but nevertheless full of spirits and ready for the rest of 
the day's hunt. We scared quite a goodly lot of ducks 
off the pond on our appearance, and were soon en- 



IN CALIFORNIA MARSHES. 471 

sconced in our blinds, banging away at a great rate, as 
the ducks and geese came in very lively. 

We shot all the afternoon, and then, it being moon- 
light, though very cloudy, we shot till late at night, 
nearly ten o'clock. The Canada geese did not come in 
till late, but when they did come, they came with a 
vengeance. You could jump up and nearly hit them 
with a gun. Our man joined us about dusk and started 
to help us out with our game. We stopped shooting as 
soon as our cartridges gave out and then proceeded to 
get things together. We gathered in the decoys, had 
the game drawn and packed in the pond boat with the 
rest of the traps, wdiich filled the boat to more than over- 
flowing. And I wondered, when I looked at that load, 
how we were going to get it to the yacht. Two of us 
took hold of the rope at the bow and the other shoved, 
and by dint of pulling and shoving we finally, after 
nearly two hours' work, got the loaded boat to the 
slough, where we transferred some of the birds to the 
other boat, and, after launching it, were, after another 
hour's work, aboard our yacht, with everything stowed 
away. We were not long in getting asleep, and the or- 
ders were that we were to be aroused about three a. m., 
as soon as the tide changed, and get under way. 

The next thing I knew I suddenly awoke with the 
sun streaming in the cabin skylight, and on looking out 
the porthole above ray berth I was very much surprised 
to see the pile of a wharf obstructing my view. In fact 
the two men had brought the yacht down during the 
night, and we two hunters, being so tired, had slept 



4/2 DUCK SHOOTING. 

through the whole voyage, they having made the run 
clown in about six hours. It was eight o'clock in the 
morning when I awoke, and we had just landed. So we 
proceeded immediately to clean up and get ready for 
the train, which passed in the afternoon. We made 
presents of game to all those we knew at this town, and 
packed the rest in sacks for our city home, where, upon 
our arrival, we gave to all our own friends around. 
And we had geese, duck and swan cooked in every style 
for the next week. 

I will try and remember a few figures. I know we 
got nineteen Canada honkers, tremendous fellows ; 
about two dozen white geese, a dozen ordinary gray 
geese, one swan, and I will not state how many ducks, 
as I suppose I might shock my Eastern friends, who 
have, I suspect, already put me down a black mark for 
shooting at night. 

I have visited the "Phantom Pond" several times 
since, but never had such a hunt and such hard work at 
the same time. But the work only made the hunt more 
agreeable, and the game more acceptable when I got it. 



CHESAPEAKE BAY DUCK SHOOTING 

The Chesapeake Bay has long been famous as a 
resort for duck shooters. It is told that in New 
England, the employer to whom an apprentice was in- 
dentured agreed as a part of the contract that the ap- 



CHESAPEAKE BAY DUCKING. 473 

prentice should not be obliged to eat salmon more than 
twice a week, and in the same way, that in early days 
along the shores of the Chesapeake, the slave-owners 
who hired out their slaves to work for others stipulated 
in their contracts that these slaves should not be obliged 
to eat canvas-back ducks more than twice a week. 
Copies of such contracts are declared to be still in exist- 
ence in some of the Maryland counties. 

This great body of water, more than forty miles 
long, and from four to eight miles in width, with its in- 
numerable bays, sounds, broad waters and sluggisli 
rivers, has unquestionably sheltered more wildfowl 
than any other body of water in the country, and has 
been the greatest ducking ground that America has 
known. To write a history of Chesapeake Bay duck 
shooting would require a volume by itself, and here 
only the briefest reference can be made to a few of the 
more celebrated localities. 

For manyyears Baltimore was the centre of the duck- 
shooting territory, but with the growth and expansion 
of that city its fame as a duck-shooting centre has been 
forgotten, and of late years the little town of Havre de 
Grace has become perhaps the best known of the gun- 
ning localities, chiefly because it is the point from 
which most battery gunners start. The Chesapeake 
Bay is historic ground for the wildfowl, and although 
its glories as a duck-shooting locality have in a large 
measure departed, and the gunning has become a mem- 
ory rather than a reality, it is worth while, neverthe- 
less, to speak briefly of some matters connected with 



474 DUCK SHOOTING. 

this shooting- and of some of its most famous ducking 
shores. Of these, there were four which perhaps had a 
fame greater than any of the others near Baltimore. 
These were Carroll's Island, Spesutia Island, Maxwell's 
Point and Benjies. On all these shores decoy shooting 
from blinds was practiced, and in the olden times with 
great success. Even at present not a few ducks are 
occasionally killed here. Spesutia Island is owned by 
a club of New York men, and still afifords excellent 
blackhead and redhead shooting, although compara- 
tively few canvas-backs are killed. At Maxwell's Point, 
Carroll's Island and Benjies, there is still often good 
shooting, and when the wind is right the flight from 
Standing Cove to Benjies across the landward side of 
Carroll's Island is often very good. 

In old times in the waters near the head of the Chesa- 
peake Bay many thousands of ducks were regularly 
killed each season. Almost every foot of available land 
bordering on the waters where the ducks feed was 
either in possession of some sportsman, who used it for 
his ow^n shooting, or was owned by a ducking club. 
Thousands of dollars have been spent on many of the 
shores, and the club houses are as comfortable as money 
can make them. Many of them, however, no longer 
afford much shooting. The ducks are becoming more 
scarce yearly. There is still, however, a supply that at 
times and in certain places makes the sport good, and 
it is enjoyed by thousands of Baltimoreans every 
season. 

Many who cannot get shores to their liking on the 



CHESAPEAKE BAY DUCKING. 475 

rivers at the head go lower down the bay for their 
shooting. There has been much complaint among the 
gunners that the feeding grounds in the rivers — espe- 
cially those in the upper parts of the streams — are often 
covered with mud brought down by floods, and that 
the ducks can be found only at the mouths of the rivers 
or on the bay. The fact seems to be that in the early 
autumn the ducks are usually found at the mouths of 
the rivers and in thj wider waters, but in the spring, 
after the breaking up of the ice, the ducks work up the 
streams, and commonly bed in the streams just before 
they go off to the North. It may w'ell enough be 
imagined that they have used up most of the grass and 
food from the open waters during autumn and winter, 
and that as soon as the streams are accessible they work 
up them in search of food. In the rivers emptying 
into the upper part of the bay the ducks are continually 
harassed, for on both shores are skirmish lines of gun- 
ners trying to kill them. On all these streams long 
blinds are built out from every point running into the 
river, so that, to escape being shot at, a bird would be 
obliged to follow the windings of the channel. 

The Carroll's Island Club occupies what was in old 
times perhaps the most celebrated ducking ground on 
Chesapeake Bay. Carroll's Island is bounded by the 
Chesapeake Bay, and the Seneca, Saltpeter and Gun- 
powder rivers. It is fourteen miles from Baltimore, 
and has an area of about twelve hundred acres. Up 
to about 1820 it had been owned for about one hun- 
dred years by the Carroll family, but in 1822 it was- 



4/6 DUCK SHOOTING. 

leased by the widow of the late Commodore Spence, of 
the United States Navy. This lease, which was per- 
petual, was later, by order of court, transferred to 
James Moir, a Scotchman, for annual rent of less than 
seven hundred dollars. The lease was afterward pur- 
chased by Colonel William Slater, and was held by 
him and by his widow and her estate until about 1880, 
when the present club took hold of it. 

There were shooting and a club at Carroll's Island as 
long ago as 1830. This continued under Colonel Sla- 
ter, and in 1856 the Carroll's Island Company was in- 
corporated, with Wm. Slater, C. Beatty Graf, Wm. P. 
Lightner, Robert Purveance, Jr., Geo. Hugh Graf, 
Wm. F. Giles and Geo. G. Brewer as incorporators. 

The membership of the present club is made up of 
men from New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore. 

When the new club took possession of Carroll's 
Island it rebuilt the club house, which is large and com- 
fortable. The ammunition house is at a distance from 
the club house ; it is lighted by a reflector from outside, 
and the usual precautions against fire and lights which 
are employed in all modern clubs have long been in 
practice there. 

In old times this was the heart of the best shooting 
in Chesapeake Bay. All the shooting was done from 
the shore, much of it from blinds along the marsh, and 
over decoys ; yet often for a time there was no decoy 
shooting, and all ducks secured were killed from the 
bar which runs out into the Gunpowder River from 
the island. The blinds from which the shooting was 



CHESAPEAKE BAY DUCKING. 477 

done were boxes sunk in the marsh, each furnished 
with a pump for the removal of any water which leaked 
into the box, and provided with seats, and with shelves 
in front, on which. to rest ammunition. 

The shooting on the bar was at ducks flying from 
the bay to the Gunpowder River, and originally was 
done from blinds in the rushes on the bar. Later, boxes 
were sunk in the bar, from which the men did their 
shooting. These boxes were about fifty yards apart. 
Often when the ducks flew well there was great shoot- 
ing here, which in its character was precisely like the 
pass shooting, elsewhere described. The birds came 
overhead, at greater or less height, according to the 
weather, and were shot as they flew over. As is else- 
where stated, the shooting at these overhead birds, 
which began with comparatively small guns, came at 
last to be done with very heavy No. 4 gauge weapons, 
in which enormous charges of No. 2 and No. 3 shot 
were used. Sometimes it happened that a little bunch 
of birds, flying up and down, the stream, as they rose 
and bunched up to cross the bar, would be struck just 
right by one of these enormous loads of shot, and half 
of them would be killed, and the remainder, hard hit, 
would come to the water several hundred yards off. and 
there very likely be lost. 

That was the uncomfortable feature of tliis bar 
shooting at Carroll's Island and at Benjies. While a 
certain proportion of birds hit, fell at once either on the 
bar or so near it that they could be recovered by the 
dogs without trouble, very many others came down to 



4: 8 DUCK SHOOTING. 

ihe water a long way off, and if it were rough, or if 
there were a fog, could not be retrieved. 

Old members of the club will remember an incident 
which took place many years ago, during a thick fog, 
when two or three birds were knocked down in the 
water, and the dogs, notwithstanding the calls of their 
owners, rushed in to retrieve them. They were soon 
lost sight of in the fog, and swam about after the ducks 
among the ice, which was running. Soon their cries 
showed the men on shore that the dogs were lost, and 
two of the boatmen started out in a light boat to re- 
cover them. In a few moments they were out of sight, 
and very soon their shouts and calls told that they, too, 
had lost all sense of direction and knew not which way 
to row. The feelings of the men standing on the shore, 
listening to the whinings of the dogs and the calls of 
the lost men, can be imagined better than described. 
The men were subsequently picked up and brought to 
shore by an old lighthouse keeper, who heard their cries, 
and starting out with a- compass, found them and 
brought them both in ; but the men standing on 
the beach heard the dogs' cries become fainter and 
fainter, until at last they ceased, for the dogs were 
drowned. 

Of course, as all clubs do, the Carroll's Island Club 
was constantly trying to improve its shooting, and at 
one time it built out into Hawk Cove a bridgeway, run- 
ning out seventy-five yards to a box built over the 
w^ater. It was hoped that this box would be so near the 
flyway of the ducks that they w^ould come at once to 



CHESAPEAKE BAY DUCKING. 479 

the decoys set out near it, but for several years after it 
was built no ducks at all came into the cove, which 
formerly had been a great resort for them, and the con- 
struction was regarded as an absolute failure. 

The birds were little disturbed about Carroll's Island 
except by the shooting on the shore. Batteries were 
not allowed there, and in autumn and winter no boats. 
In the spring, however, about the middle of March, and 
from that to the first of April, the fishermen were per- 
mitted to draw their nets. When Mrs. Slater owned 
the island and rented the shooting, there was much an- 
noyance to the gunners from these fishermen, but when 
the club purchased the land this was stopped. Never- 
theless, the fishing rights, rented for the spring only, 
brought the club an income of $300 a year. 

In the old days on the bar, disputes — very entertain- 
ing to all except the disputants — sometimes occurred 
as to the ownership of ducks at which more than one 
man had shot. As the boxes were not A^ery far apart, 
it might often happen that a duck flying between two 
of them would be shot at by two persons, and if it fell, 
each man would promptly claim it as his duck, and the 
debates about the ownership were often very earnest. 
After a while it came to be more or less of a proverb 
that at Carroll's Island no one could be a successful 
duck-shooter unless he were also a good claimer. Sto- 
ries are told of venerable men, occupying high positions 
in the business or professional world, who almost came 
to blows over birds that had been killed, and who de- 
liberately sat down side by side and laboriously plucked 



48o DUCK SHOOTING. 

the fowl in dispute in order to determine — according to 
the ckib rule — on which side it had been shot. 

Occasionally, when ducks were discovered bedded 
close to the shore, toling was practiced. It could be 
done only at such times. It is thus described to me by 
my friend, Mr. Wm. Trotter : 

"The darky came up and told us that he had found 
quite a bed of birds sitting near the shore, and that he 
thought we could get a tole on them. Two of us went 
with him, and after getting as near the shore as we 
could, crept up on our hands and knees until we were 
close to it. We could see a bed of two or three hun- 
dred ducks, blackheads, redheads and widgeons, feed- 
ing about a hundred yards off the shore. The darky 
had with him a little white poodle dog, that followed 
close at his heels, and as we came along we had filled 
the pockets of our shooting-coats wath small sticks. 
After we had crept up close to the shore, the darky 
threw a stick off to one side, on the beach, and the dog 
raced after it, and took it up in his mouth and shook it 
and played with it for a moment or two, and then stood 
still and looked back toward us, and the darky threw 
another stick up the beach, and the dog raced up along 
to it, and played with that for a little while, when his 
owner threw a third stick. This was kept up for some 
little time, the dog running backward and forward 
along the beach. The blackheads almost at once no- 
ticed the dog, and began to swim toward shore to see 
what it was. The redheads also seemed interested, and 
kept with the blackheads, and the remaining ducks fol- 



CHESAPEAKE BAY DUCKING. 48 1 

lowed, not apparently because they cared for the dog, 
but in order to keep with the bunch. They came up 
quite close to the shore, and when they were near 
enough we fired three barrels into them on the water, 
and three more as they rose, and knocked down a lot of 
them. We loaded as fast as we could, and the darky 
ran and jumped into a boat, and pushing off, we began 
to shoot o\'er the cripples, and gathered from those six 
shots just forty-seven birds. That is the biggest tole I 
ever saw made. It was common enough to get ten or 
twelve, or even sometimes twenty or twenty-five birds 
in a tole, but any larger number was unusual." 

The blackheads and redheads are regarded as the 
most inquisitive of all the ducks. It is doubted whether 
widgeons could be toled at all ; yet on the Connecticut 
shore I have heard of old-squaws responding to this 
lure. 

While toling used to be practiced quite extensively 
from these shores, it has not been in favor for many 
years, and naturally so, since it is so very destructive. 
Even those who for any reason may have occasionally 
taken part in it say that they will not repeat it, and that 
a duck or two killed on the wing, either flying by or 
coming up to decoys, give more satisfaction to the man 
making the shot than a dozen or twenty shot at a tole. 

For many years prior to 1883, night shooting with 
big guns was practiced in the neighborhood of Havre 
de Grace and Baltimore by a gang of poachers, against 
whom the processes of the law were invoked in vain. 
These men went out at night in skiffs, in the bow of 



4^2 DUCK SHOOTING. 

which were mounted these great guns, and slaughtered 
the ducks by thousands on their roosting beds. 

These guns, which were commonly known as "night 
guns," are huge single-barrel shotguns, patterned after 
an ordinary shotgun, but weighing sometimes 150 
pounds, with a bore considerably over an inch in diam- 
eter. Such a gun was mounted on a pivot in the bow 
of a small skiff, to be paddled through the water, or 
which might be mounted on runners and pushed over 
the ice. The stock of the gun was braced against a 
block in the boat, and the recoil of the discharge often 
sent the boat back a long way through the water. The 
gun was usually painted the same color as the boat, 
some dull, inconspicuous tint. For many years there 
have been laws prohibiting the killing of ducks by this 
means, and many efforts had been made to convict the 
persons who were known to practice this illegal gun- 
ning. For this reason, each gun was so mounted in its 
boat that it could be easily detached from its fittings, 
and each had a long string attached to it, running to a 
buoy, so that in case of an alarm the arm could be 
pitched overboard, and the owner paddle away, to re- 
turn for his property at a later day. 

The number of birds killed by the discharge of one 
of these guns was, of course, very great. The common 
load was from a quarter to a third of a pound of powder 
and one and a half to two pounds of shot. The gunner 
paddled up quietly to the raft of sleeping canvas-backs, 
adjusted his gun to suit himself and discharged it, 
sometimes gathering from 75 to 100 ducks as the result. 



CHESAPEAKE BAY DUCKING. 483 

For years the efforts of the members of the gunning 
clubs around the Susquehanna, Gunpowder, Bush and 
Back rivers, to put an end to this ihegal shooting, were 
fruitless. The men practicing this gunning were politi- 
cally influential, and it was impossible to secure evi- 
dence against them which would satisfy the magistrate 
who had charge of the case. However, in the winter of 
1881-82, more stringent laws were passed, and one pro- 
vision allowed persons charged with this offence to be 
taken before a magistrate either in Harford or Balti- 
more County, the latter county being one in w^hich they 
were without the political influence which they had in 
Harford. 

The matter was put in charge of Mr. John E. 
Semmes, of Baltimore. He engaged skillful detectives, 
and after considerable work a force of officers in charge 
of Mr. Semmes raided Spesutia Island, which was then 
the headquarters of the gang. The poachers, however, 
were found armed and entrenched, and threatened to 
fight for their liberty. At last, however, they were per- 
suaded to surrender, and after being arrested were in- 
formed that they would be tried in Baltimore. When 
they learned this the poachers were much alarmed, and 
Mr. Semmes proposed a compromise, offering to allow 
them to be taken before a Harford County magistrate 
if they would give up their big guns. The men begged 
and implored and wept and swore over parting with 
their guns, but at last they agreed to do so. Six of the 
big guns were captured, and were subsequently broken 
up in a junk-shop. One of them was a particularly 



484 DUCK SHOOTING. 

beautiful weapon, weighing 160 pounds, with a bore of 
if inches, and a lock of the finest and most delicate 
construction. Some of these guns are shown on an- 
other page. 

Prior to 1880, Havre de Grace was the headquarters 
of the sink-boat or battery shooters of Chesapeake Bay, 
and it is still the point from which most of them start 
out. At that time there were licensed, at a fee of $20 
each, about forty professional battery outfits. These 
consisted each of a small sailing craft from 25 to 50 feet 
long, a small flat-bottomed rowboat or skiff, a sink-box 
or battery, and from 300 to 500 decoys. To work these 
outfits, three men are required. At that time, shooting 
was allowed only on three days in the week after the 
first of November — Mondays, Wednesdays and Fri- 
days. The batteries were not allowed to go upon the 
shooting ground before three o'clock in the morning. 
No shooting could be done until one hour before sun- 
rise, and it must cease one-half hour after sunset. Sink- 
boxes were not allowed to be out within one-half mile 
of the shore. 

There was great competition for the best positions, 
and it was the practice of many of these craft to an- 
chor near the line within one-half mile of the shore, and 
immediately after three o'clock to proceed to the 
ground and to put out their decoys as soon as they could 
see to do so. This operation takes a full hour, and by 
the time the outfit was in position it was late enough to 
begin to shoot. 0f course, the earlier hours of the day 
are by far the best. 



CHESAPEAKE BAY DUCKING. 485 

The terms charged by gunners in those days for com- 
plete outfit services of the men and meals were usually 
from $35 to $40 per day. 

Beside the ordinary battery or sink-boat shooting, 
practiced here with a great number of decoys, ordinary 
batteaux or gunning skiffs are used. These are called 
sneak-boats. They are painted white, and have a cur- 
tain or shield of canvas running from bow to mid- 
ships. The decoys are thrown out and the boat moves 
off to a sufficient distance, so that it does not alarm the 
birds flying about. They are thus likely to alight 
among the decoys, and when they do so, the sneak-boat 
is slowly and carefully sculled forward until close to the 
decoys. The gunner then rises to his knees, and shoot- 
ing over the canvas curtain, kills his ducks. Usually 
in such a sneak-boat two double-barreled guns are used. 

In the old times on the eastern shore of Chesapeake 
Bay, the Sassafras River probably marked the begin- 
ning of the shooting, while Chester River, in almost its 
entire length, Kent Island Narrows, Eastern Bay and 
Miles River, Poplar Island, the large body of water in- 
cluded in the Choptank River and its tributaries, the 
Little Choptank, Tar Bay, Hooper Straits, Fishing 
Bay, Holland Strait, all of the large body of water in- 
cluded in Tangier and Pocomoke Sound, and so on 
down the bay. were all teeming with wildfowl and af- 
forded fine shooting. On the western side of the bay 
it was the same from the localities named above, near 
Baltimore clear to the James River. In Eastern and 



486 DUCK SHOOTING. 

in Hogg Bay one might see in old times redheads — es- 
pecially in February and March — rafted in bodies miles 
in extent, probably not less than 50,000 ducks in one 
body. 

The same thing might be seen about Poplar Isl- 
and Narrows and in the Chojitank River. We are 
told that at Lou's Point it was no uncommon thing on 
favorable days to have an ox-cart sent to the point to 
haul up the ducks of the shooters that congregated 
there. 

In modern times — that is to say, within the last thirty 
years — the redhead and the large blackhead have been 
the most numerous of the "good" ducks in the lower 
waters of the bay, though widgeons, locally known as 
bald pates or bald crowns, were also numerous. Those 
three species, with the canvas-backs, were known to 
duck shooters as good ducks, while all other fow 1 of the 
diving sort are known as trash ducks. In former 
years the canvas-backs were seen in large bodies in these 
waters, but they do not find here the wild celery in 
great profusion, since the brackish and salt water of 
these localities is not suited to its growth. 

The last good season had in the waters of Talbot 
County was in February and March of 1890, at which 
time the waters of Eastern Bay and Miles River were 
visited by vast flocks of redheads and bald pates Since 
that time there has been no feed in those waters, and 
they have not been resorted to by the ducks. This feed, 
which is locally known as duck grass, seems to have dis- 
appeared from many bays, inlets and streams where it 



CHESAPEAKE BAY DUCKING. 487 

was formerly abundant, and no satisfactory reason for 
its absence has been given. 

Beside the vast quantities of ducks found here in 
old times, many of the localities mentioned were noted 
for their numbers of swans and geese. Swan Point at 
the mouth of Chester River, Kent Point, Parson's 
Island in Eastern Bay, Black Walnut Point at the 
mouth of Choptank River, Hills Point, Tar Bay, were 
favorite localities. The latter is now, at the proper 
season, one of the best resorts left for geese. These 
fowl are still to be found in many localities in good 
numbers, since, from the character of their feeding- 
grounds, they are less disturbed and less shot at than 
are the ducks. As they frequent the wide, open bodies 
of water through the day and come in to the shores to 
feed only at night or in very stormy weather, there are 
not many places where they can be shot over decoys. 
Some were killed out of sneak-boats and from booby 
blinds, but where they are undisturbed by night shoot- 
ing with a light — which is, of course, unlawful — they 
are still to be seen in goodly numbers. 

This is not the case with swans, which, for some 
reason — possibly for the want of proper food — are be- 
coming much more scarce than formerly. They decoy 
readily, and good shooting is to be had at them out of 
a battery with swan decoys. Mr. J. G. Morris, of Eas- 
ton, Md., tells of shooting them in this way, using No. 
4 or even No. 6 shot and shooting at the head only. 

The same gentleman writes interestingly concerning 
a method of killing swans and geese, which, while far 



488 DUCK SHOOTING. 

removed from sport, is worth repeating. A certain 
gunner having discovered that swans were feeding 
near an old wreck off the mouth of the Chester River, 
lashed his gun to the timbers of the wreck in such a way 
as to command the shoal. When a number of swans 
had collected there, he pulled a string which was tied 
to the triggers of his gun and led to the shore. The 
discharge raked the feeding ground. Mr. Morris 
expresses his belief in this story, as he has often known 
of geese being killed in a similar manner. When it 
was ascertained where the fowl came ashore to feed at 
night in narrow bays, stakes were driven at the edge of 
the water and a duck gun lashed to them in such a po- 
sition that it would rake the feeding ground. The gun 
was discharged from a string leading from the trigger 
to the blind. No matter how dark the night, the indi- 
vidual in the blind could usually hear the geese feeding 
in the proper place for a shot. 

Beside this more or less open water shooting, many 
of the tributaries of the Chesapeake are resorted to by 
large numbers of marsh fowl — black ducks, mallards, 
teals, sprig-tail and all the marsh ducks — and fair 
shooting at these birds is still to be had at these places. 

In addition to the failure of the feed which — in the 
belief of many persons^has caused the wildfowl to 
desert many places in Chesapeake Bay, where they 
were once abundant, another cause is the increase of 
the oyster trade, which involves the constant presence 
on waters formerfy frequented by the game, of vessels 
and craft of all kinds. Besides the disturbance caused 



CHESAPEAKE BAY DUCKING. 



489 



by the passage to and fro of such craft, and their 
working on the feeding ground, all of these boats carry 
guns or rifles and use them continually. This is 
against the law, but the game laws are little or not at 
all enforced on many parts of the bay. 





PART ni. 



THE ART OF DUCK SHOOTINC 




THE ART OF DUCK SHOOTING. 



GUNS AND LOADING. 

Wildfowl are in a measure protected against the 
gunner, not only by their difificulty of access, and by 
their wariness, but also by a coat of armor — their thick 
feathers — which is not easily penetrated. Few things 
are more important to success, therefore, than the gun 
which a man uses, and the loads which he puts in that 
gun. About these matters every individual has his own 
opinion, and as there are many men who gun, so there 
are many minds about guns and ammunition. 

Practically, the 12-gauge gun shoots as strongly and 
as closely as a larger arm, yet its load is usually smaller, 
though the circle of its pattern is quite as effective. A 
friend, who is a remarkable shot on upland game, uses 
a little five-pound 12-gauge gun, from which he shoots 
two and a half or three drams of powder and a small 
charge of shot. With this arm he kills upland game at 
surprising distances, and on the coast of California has 
used it \yith success in duck, and even in goose, shoot- 
ing. Not very long ago, during a trip to the North 
Carolina coast, where excellent shooting was had at 
canvas-backs and other ducks, he used this arm, al- 
though advised to take a heavier gun, and to shoot 

493 



494 DUCK SIIOOTIXG. 

larger charges. However, after shooting for a day 
and a half, he acknowledged his gun's inefficiency un- 
der these conditions, and thereafter used a heavier one. 

Each individual has his personal preferences as to 
size and weight of gun and the way in which it should 
he loaded, and these preferences will depend largely on 
the man's experience, the kind of shooting he has been 
accustomed to, and that which he purposes to do at any 
particular time. For sea shooting, the choice of most 
men will be a heavy gun, weighing perhaps ten pounds, 
and of ten gauge, and heavily choked as to its left bar- 
rel. The charge to be used will vary with the arm and 
the gunner, for we all know that each gun has its own 
idiosyncrasies, and that no hard and fast rule for load- 
ing can be laid down. The gunner should target his 
weapon with different charges, at different distances, 
frvjm forty to seventy yards, and should experiment 
until he has found the combination of powder, shot and 
wads to gi\'e him the most e\'en pattern at these various 
distances. 

]\Ianv men always carry two guns in the 1)1 ind, one 
of them with the right barrel a cylinder, so-called, and 
the left slightly choked, and the other with the right 
barrel moderately choked, and the left full choked. 
With such a combination one is prepared for almost 
anv contingency that may arise and can cover a wide 
range. 

Most men shoot heavier charges of shot than can be 
efficiently used,'''and thereby gain nothing in numbers 
killed, but add somewhat to their own discomfort. In 



GUNS AND LOADING. 495 

a certain ten-pound gun, 1 shoot at fowl one ounce of 
shot and four drams of powder. This charge of shot 
will be regarded as small by many gunners, but w^ith it 
this gun does better work than with any other charge. 

The tendency among gunners also is to use too large 
shot. Number 4 is quite large enough for ducks, cer- 
tainly for canvas-backs and redheads ; while for mal- 
lards, pintails, and smaller ducks. No. 6, or early in the 
season No. 8, is quite large eufuigh. One may kill many 
geese at long range with fours, although the more com- 
mon practice is to shoot B shot at them. For swans. 
BB is large enough, though for long shots at birds far 
above one, T or O may be used. It is always worth 
wdiile when going duck shooting to carry a few B cart- 
ridges, and eight or ten shells, loaded with the larger 
shot, for swans. They do not take up very much room, 
and are sometimes very useful. 

While with perhaps a majority of gunners the nitro 
powders at once came into favor, there was another 
considerable class, more conservative, which long de- 
clined to use them. As time passed, however, the 
manufacturers overcame \ery many of the difficulties 
which at first gave troul:)]e with the product, and, at the 
present day, the number of men who decline to use it, 
because they do not regard it as being as effective as 
black powder, is small, .\lthough the nitro powders 
are a great advance on the old-fashioned black explos- 
ives, they are not yet all of them perfect. As they are 
chemical and not mechanical compounds, they are sub- 
ject to certain changes, depending on the conditions by 



496 DUCK SHOOTING. 

which they are surrounded, and which affect them to a 
greater or less extent. Thus, some of the powders, if 
kept in a very dry place, may lose an undue amount of 
moisture; or, if kept in a very damp place, may gain 
moisture. It is a good rule, therefore, always to use 
freshly-loaded cartridges, for after shells have been 
loaded for a year or two they cannot always be relied 
on to act evenly. Nine out of ten may seem to be as ef- 
fective as if fresh, but the tenth may burn so slowly as 
merely to throw the shot out of the barrel. At the 
same time, no one who has become accustomed to 
shooting nitro powders is likely to go back to the jar- 
ring, punishing, black powders. There is also abun- 
dant testimony that many brands of nitro powder, if 
properly protected from heat and dampness, retain 
their efficiency for years. 

By using tlie nitro pow'ders w^e get rid of the old nui- 
sances of smoke, dirt and recoil, and all appreciate the 
advantage of this. Is it certain, however, that the adap- 
tation of the nitro powders to small arms gives us any 
actual advantage beside those of greater comfort? 

It is believed by some gunners that the old views 
about where to hold to hit a cross-flying or overhead 
bird, must undergo more or less modification since the 
introduction of nitro powders. Such persons contend 
that these nitro powders are so much quicker and 
stronger than black powder that the shot reaches the 
bird in much less time than when propelled by that, and 
that, therefore, it is no longer necessary to hold so far 
ahead as formerly on crossing birds. Good brush shots 



GUNS AND LOADING. 497 

who once thought it necessary to allow consider- 
able leeway on crossing shots at quail and partridges, 
declare that with the nitro powders it is not necessary 
to hold ahead at all, but that the shot strikes the bird if 
the gun is held directly on it. It is believed by them 
that the increase in the muzzle velocity of shot pro- 
pelled by nitro powder is about 50 per cent, over that of 
black powder. In other words, that a charge of shot 
from a nitro powder cartridge will go forty-five yards 
while a charge from the black powder cartridge will go 
thirty yards. If this is the case, the difference in the 
holding will be obvious. 

Does the suggested difference in the velocity of the 
flight of shot actually exist? Is it true that the nitm 
powders send the shot to its mark more quickly than 
the old-fashioned black powder, with its smoke, its tre- 
mendous report, its cloud of sulphurous smoke and its 
jarring recoil ? Not only are there many bird shooters 
who believe this to be true, but men who shoot at artifi- 
cial targets from the trap, and others who have had 
great practice in refereeing such contests, declare that 
the shot goes faster and hits harder when sent by nitro 
powders than by black powder. It would seem that ex- 
periments must have been carried on by the various 
manufacturers of nitro powders which would demon- 
strate the truth or falsity of such beliefs. 

It is certain that shooters who use the smokeless 
powders instantly see the effect of the shot, while with 
black powder there is a perceptible interval of wait- 
ing while the smoke clears away before the shooter 



498 DUCK SHOOTIXG. 

knows what the result of the chscharge of his gun has 
been, and it is probable that this difference in the time 
of learning what the shooter has done may in part ac- 
count for the widespread belief alluded to. 

The muzzle velocities of certain powders, with cer- 
tain loads, have been given in various tests. \\'ith the 
Dupont powder, the velocities in INIr. Armin Tenner's 
tests are given as slightly under i,ooo feet, the loads 
running from two and a half to tliree drams; while a 
load of three drams, the equivalent of thirty-seven 
grains, with one and an eighth ounce of shot, gives an 
average of 1,040 feet. The new Robin Hood smoke- 
less powder claims a velocity of 1,100 feet, with three 
and a quarter drams, bulk measure, and one and an 
eighth or one and a quarter ounces of shot. 

On the other hand, Curtis and Harvey's Sporting 
powder is said, as stated below, to give a muzzle veloc- 
ity of 1,344 feet with a load of four and a half drams 
of powder and one and a half ounce of No. 4 shot. The 
pattern with this charge is reported as good. 

From the experiments carried on at the works of the 
Union IMetallic Cartridge Company, at Bridgeport, we 
have the following table, showing how many grains of 
each one of seven of the best known nitro powders are 
equivalent to drams of black powder, of which, how- 
ever, the quality is not specified. In this table the new 
Robin Hood powder is not included, as perhaps it 
should not be. Mr. N. P. Leach calls it a new de- 
parture, as it is neither a nitro nor a picric powder. It 
is, he says, "a bulk powder, with high velocity, and 



GUNS AXD LOADING. 499 

gives very little -chamber pressure and recoil when fired. 
In loading it, a black powder bulk measure should be 
used." This is the table : 

COMPARATIVE MEASURES OF NITRO POWDERS. 



Black Powder. S -C r^- . ? ^-^ ^ 



2 drams equal to 24 28 25 25 24 16 

234 drams equal to 27 31^-2 28 29 27 18 

2^/2 drams equal to 30 35 31 33 30 20 22 

2^ drams equal to 33 38' S 34 37 33 22 27 

3 drams equal to 36 42 37 40 36 24 29 

3^ drams equal to 39 4S'/2 40 42 39 26 31 

3^ drams equal to 42 49 43 45 42 28 35 

3}i drams equal to 52^3 46 48 45 30 38 

4 drams equal to 56 49 50 48 32 

4% drams equal to 59K' 52 

414 drams equal to 63 55 



The maximum load of Walsrode for a ten-gauge gun 
is given by the manufacturers as forty grains, which is 
nearly the equivalent of four and a quarter drams of 
black powder. For an eight-gauge the maximum 
charge is fifty-eight grains. 

Of the new Robin Hood powder, we are told that 
three and a quarter drams, bulk measure, well wadded, 
with one and an eighth to one and a quarter ounce of 
shot, gives a good pattern. An increased amount of 



500 DUCK SHOOTING. 

powder, when but one and a quarter ounce of shot is 
used, gives but a sHght increase of velocity, while it 
destroys the pattern. 

If one fires a charge of shot over the water, he sees 
that the pellets which compose that charge travel at 
varying velocities and for different distances, and reach 
the water in a string fifteen or twenty feet in length ; 
and in the same way, when one fires at a target, he finds 
that the charge of shot spreads out more or less irregu- 
larly over a circle whose diameter may be three, four, 
five or more feet, accordino- to the distance of the targfet 
from the gun's muzzle. The pellets are most thickly 
clustered about the centre of the target and are greatly 
scattered near its edges. 

Theoretically, the pellets of shot in a cartridge 
should leave the muzzle of the barrel in the same order 
which they occupied in the cartridge, each individual 
pellet then taking its own course. Those on 
which the greatest force is exerted, and which for any 
reason are least retarded, go the straightest and with 
most velocity, and reach the target first. Those which 
are held back by any cause, or which, by crushing, have 
been deprived of their spherical form, lose much of 
their velocity, and soon drop out of the direct line of 
flight. No gun-barrel, as bored to-day, is a true cylin- 
der, but toward the muzzle all are drawn down so that 
they are sections of cones; the pellets of shot there- 
fore are violently jammed together just before they 
leave the barrel, and more or less of them are upset — 
that is, crushed, so that they lose their sphericity. Such 



GUNS AND LOADING. 501 

pellets become at once ineffective. Shot manufacturers 
have endeavored to compensate for this by hardening- 
the shot, so that it is less easily smashed than the old 
soft shot, and have succeeded so well that chilled shot 
is now almost universally used by men who are espe- 
cially anxious to do effective shooting. 

It is thus evident that at ordinary shooting distances 
only a portion of the pellets in any charge is effective. 
What this portion is depends on the gun and the load 
which is used in it. It has been stated that in a true 
cylinder barrel the killing portion of the load is less 
than 50 per cent., the remainder of the pellets dropping 
to the ground, or flying off at an angle, or losing their 
velocity very rapidly ; but in modern guns the propor- 
tion is much greater, some guns sending 70 per cent, 
of the shot to the target at 40 yards. 

It has been determined by experiment that about 5 
per cent, of the pellets of the charge simultaneously 
reach a target at forty yards distance from the gun. 
Very close after this 5 per cent, follows from 25 to 30 
per cent, of the charge, and then the remainder of the 
effective pellets. In his "Breech-loader and How to Use 
It," Mr. Greener states that in a cylinder-bore gun 
shooting forty-two grains of nitro powder and one and 
an eighth ounce of No. 6 shot, the leading pellets 
reached the target at forty yards in .138 of a second 
from the time at which they leave the muzzle, while the 
last pellet to reach the target arrives in . 187 of a second 
after the discharge. In other words, the difference in 
time is about .05 of a second. 



502 DUCK SHOOTING. 

If, as is often stated — l)iit. we l)elie\e, without any 
lietter foundation than the merest estimate — a wild duck 
dies at the rate of a mile a minute, the bird during this 
.05 of a second would pass over a s^iace of about four 
and a half feet, and, therefore, if struck by the leading 
])ellet, the last part of the charge would miss him en- 
tirely. On the other hand, it must be remembered that 
there is no appreciable inter\-al between the arrival at 
the target of these pellets ; they continue to come, and 
the .05 of a second merely represents the interval be- 
tween the very first and the very last pellet to arrive. 

In the same work Mr. Greener gives also tables of 
the velocities of shot with different loads of powder, 
as determined by Mr. R. W. S. Grifiith. The tests were 
made with a twelve-bore gun. with powder charges of 
Schultze powder running from two and a half to four 
drams, and with charges of shot from one to one and a 
quarter ounce, the sizes of shot being Nos. i, 5. 6 and 
10. The highest velocity with four drams of powder 
and one and a quarter ounce of No. i shot, at five yards, 
was 1,106 feet, and at sixty, 863 feet. The reader de- 
siring to study this table is referred to the volume in 
(juestion. Much interesting information is given in 
standard works on guns and shooting, such as "The 
Breech Loader," "The Gim and Its Developments," 
and "The Modern Sportsman's Gun and Rifle." 

HOW TO HOLD. 

When a charge of shot is fired at a bird, it proceeds 
through the air somewhat in the shape of an elongated 



HOIV TO HOLD. 503 

ellipse. From this ellipsoid, which may be twenty feet 
in length and three or four feet in diameter at its 
widest part, pellets of shot are continually dropping. 
The space covered by this shot and the shape taken 
by it, while, of course, never quite the same for 
any two gun barrels, is at all events a large one, 
and it would seem that no bird at which it was 
discharged could get away, if the gun were held 
reasonably straight. But we all know that they do 
get away. 

One of the most difficult things in the w^orld is to 
learn how to hold on your ducks and when to draw the 
trigger. A great deal has been written on this subject, 
but to very little purpose. We are told that you should 
shoot one, two, three, or ten feet ahead of your bird, 
but when the bird is darting by like the wind, at an un- 
known distance, how is any man to estimate a distance 
ahead of him in feet? It may be doubted if it can be 
done. Tf birds are coming gently to decoys, or are fly- 
ing toward the gunner, head on, the gun should be 
aimed slightly in front of the bird, and then moved 
ahead just at the moment of pulling the trigger, in or- 
der that the bird may fly into the charge and be struck 
by the centre of it ; but a crossing bird, perhaps going 
with the wind, or flying overhead in calm weather, pro- 
ceeds at such a rate that no elaborate calculation of feet 
or inches can be made. The best the beginner can do 
is to hold well ahead of the bird, trying to gauge his 
shooting by the effect, holding further and further 
aheac until at last he manages to kill. He must learn 



504 DUCK SHOOTING. 

the lesson of experience, and must strive to profit by 
each shot, whether he hits or wliether he misses. 

It will often happen that the gunner will see feathers 
fly from the hinder part of the crossing duck at which 
he has shot, and from this he know^s that he is shooting 
too far behind. Sometimes he will aim at a duck, and 
missing it, will kill one flying several feet behind it. 

Yet such a chance may mislead him, for, as show^n on 
an earlier page, he may possibly have hit the first bird 
with the first pellets of the charge and killed the second 
with the last pellets. Yet if I were going to give advice 
to a young duck shooter as to how to hold on his birds, 
it would consist of these three rules : 

1. Hold ahead. 

2. Hold further ahead, and 

3. Hold still further ahead. 

It will be found that the most experienced shooters, 
whether at ducks or at the trap, are never afraid of 
holding too far ahead. What they fear is that they 
will shoot behind their birds. Judgment must be used, 
of course. One does not shoot at a gentle incoming 
bird as he does at one sweeping by in full flight. He 
must be observant and must try to learn just what the 
effect of each shot is. Much may be inferred from 
those shots fired at birds flying low over the water, 
where the relation of the shot on the water to the pass- 
ing bird can be clearly observed. He should try to see 
and to remember all that he does, and many of his shots 
will convey to hirn a lesson. He should remember all 
these lessons, and try to profit l)y them. 



HO IV TO HOLD. 505 

If the gunner has with him a companion who has 
been trained to watch the course of shot, he may re- 
quest him to watch it and tell him why his charge 
misses. For be it known that the trap shooters, men who 
spend much of their time shooting at targets and gaug- 
ing the flight of shot, declare that it is quite possible to 
see the charge of shot flying from the muzzle of the 
gun toward a target, and to determine just where this 
charge goes with relation to the target. This acute- 
ness of vision is said not to be peculiar to a few men, 
but to be common to many trap shooters. The ob- 
server stands behind and a little to one side of the 
shooter, and looking at the target, sees the puff of 
smoke come from the muzzle of the gun. This rushes 
out about ten feet, and from it darts forward what 
looks like a long shadow composed of many lengthwise 
strips ; the course of this flying shadow — which is in 
fact the charge of shot — can be followed to and beyond 
the target, and we are told that it is the common prac- 
tice for a trap shooter, when he finds himself missing 
his targets or his birds, to ask a friend to stand near 
him and tell him where his shot is going with relation 
to the target, whether before, behind it, or over or 
under. 

It is rather startling to be told that a charge of shot 
can be seen by the unaided eye as it flies from the muz- 
zle of the discharged gun ; but since we all know that 
the charge of shot fired from a gun has been photo- 
graphed, it appears reasonable enough that the trained 
human eye, under favorable conditions, should be able 



506 DUCK SHOOTING. 

to detect tlie passage of a charge 01 shot through tlie 
air. At all events, the matter appears to be one of 
common knowledge among trap shooters. 

Skill in shooting is not born in any one. Just like 
reading and writing, it must be learned, and, like read- 
ing and writing, the more practice one has, the more 
easily and the better it is done. Many a professional 
gunner, who is a w'onderful shot, would find it labor of 
the hardest kind to sit down and write a four-page let- 
ter; and many a business or professional man, who 
goes gunning perhaps once in two or three years, finds 
that killing the fowl that gi\'e him shots is something 
that he cannot accomplish. Many men have noticed 
that sometimes at the end of a season they can shoot 
very well ; and then, if for two or three years they do 
not go shooting, they find that they cannot hit anything, 
and have to begin at the beginning and learn it all over 
again. They have perhaps forgotten how to hold on 
their birds, and, beside, their muscles, through disuse, 
refuse at first to act with the brain as they formerly 
did. This reflex action, so called, can only be regained 
by practice. 



WHEN TO SHOOT. 

No one can learn how to shoot by reading about it in 
books. The only way that the art can be acquired is by 
jjractice. A fewhints and suggestions, how^ever, may 
make this practice more profitable. A common error of 



WHEN TO SHOOT. 507 

beginners — indeed, it is not confined to them — is to 
shoot at the birds too late. The gunner should shoot 
at crossing birds before they are up even with him. As 
a rule, if birds are coming from the leeward, let him 
rise to shoot as soon as they get over the tail of his de- 
coys, and let him pull the trigger before they get oppo- 
site the blind. In the same way, at overhead birds, he 
should shoot before they are actually above him. If he 
waits until the moment when they are nearest to him 
he is almost certain to shoot behind them. While it is 
true that a man must keep down close and out of sight 
as much as possible, and while it is also true that certain 
birds, as black ducks, mallards, teal and widgeon, will 
flare and begin to climb as soon as they see him, it is bet- 
ter that they should do this than that they should get 
beyond him before he shoots. If he is obliged to twist 
around and shoot at them as they are going away, 
especially if they are birds that have flown over him, 
he is very likely to shoot behind them. 

Experiments made years ago by Major W. McClin- 
tock, R. A., and recorded in the Journal of the Royal 
United Service Institution, have been quoted as throw- 
ing some light on the question as to how the gunner 
should hold on his birds. It is said that a charge of 
four and a half drams best C. & H. powder gives to 
No. 4 shot a muzzle velocity of 1,344 feet. Inferior 
powder would, of course, give less. The time of flight 
for a velocity of i ,300 feet is for 30 yards .093 ; for 
40 yards, .1342; for 50 yards, .1797; for 60 yards, 
.2311, and so on. This will be about the velocitv usu- 



5o8 DUCK SHOOTING. 

ally obtained from a ten-bore gun with four and a half 
drams of good powder and one and a half ounce of No. 
4 shot. A bird flying at the rate of a mile a minute 
across the line of fire at 30 yards distance would pass 
over about 8^ feet while the shot passes through the 30 
yards. At 40 yards the bird would cover about 12 feet ; 
at 50 yards, about 16 feet, and at 60 yards, not far from 
22 feet. 

We thus have the basis of a very pretty theory, but, 
unfortunately, we do not know the velocity at which 
birds fly, and we can only guess the distance at which 
they are from us, and can only estimate what 10, 15 or 
20 feet ahead is, as we see the bird shooting by us 
through the air. As a matter of fact, we believe there 
is no known rule for holding ahead which will do any 
one any good. The only way in which the gunner can 
learn how to do this is to practice shooting, and in that 
way we should certainly all be glad to learn how to hold. 



FLIGHT OF DUCKS. 

In connection with duck shooting and the question 
as to how to aim at these birds when flying, a vast num- 
ber of guesses and estimates have been made concernmg 
the speed with which birds fly. It is commonly stated 
that ducks fly at the rate of a mile a minute, or ninety, 
or even one hundred and twenty miles an hour, but we 
do not know that any satisfactory observations have 




o = 

(—1 (U 

§1 

w -^ 
2 1 



FLIGHT OF DUCKS. 509 

been made to test the birds' flight. The older natural- 
ists, recording the capture of passenger pigeons in New 
York with undigested rice in their crops, believed to 
have been obtained in the rice fields of Georgia, made 
estimates as to the time required to cover the distance 
and the consequent speed of the bird in flight. The 
process of digestion in all birds is rapid, but it is not 
known that this process goes on during the time of 
flight or when the bird is actively exerting itself. 

Not very long ago an interesting observation on the 
flight of the pintail duck was reported by Mr. George 
Bird, of New York, whose interest in all matters per- 
taining to shooting and whose wide experience are 
sufficiently well known. 

The observation, while it does not give the speed at 
which the particular species reported on Hies, does show 
that it easily flies at a speed of over sixty miles an hour. 

In March, 1899, Mr. Bird was traveling through the 
Southwest on a special train over the M., K. & T. R. R. 
From a slough in the prairie at the side of the track 
several pintail ducks sprang into the air and flew along 
parallel with the train. Mr. Bird watched them for a 
moment or two, and then, seeing that they were flying 
at about the same rate as the train, it occurred to him 
to look at the speed gauge, which he had been consult- 
ing but a moment before. The train was running at 
the rate of fifty-two miles per hour, and the birds were 
swinging along beside it and not more than forty yards 
distant. 

A moment or two later they seemed disposed to leave 



5IO DUCK SHOOTING. 

tlie train, and swung out over the prairie to a distance 
of perhaps i,ooo yards from the train, and then, turn- 
ing again toward the track, swung in and resumed their 
old position. After a few moments, however, they 
seemed again to become uneasy, and began to increase 
their speed, still keeping parallel with the train, but 
drawing slowly ahead, reminding the observer as he 
looked at them somewhat of the way in which the faster 
of two steamboats of nearly equal speed draws away 
from the slower. This continued until the ducks 
reached a point where the smoke of the engine was met 
with, when they suddenly flared up into the air, greatly 
increased their speed, and in a very few moments were 
quite out of sight ahead of the train. 

The opportunity was one which might never occur 
again, and the observation one of very considerable in- 
terest. The pintail duck is not a very swift flyer if we 
compare it with such birds as the butterball, broadbill, 
redhead or canvas-back. At the same time, it is prob- 
ably as swift a bird as the mallard or black duck, and 
perhaps somewhat swafter. 

Gunners believe that the broadbill, blackhead, can- 
vas-back and redhead are among the swiftest of all our 
ducks, but it is quite certain that almost all of them fly 
rapidly enough to at times puzzle any except the most 
experienced gunners. 

ETIQUETTE OF THE BLIND. 

Since it often happens that two gunners may shoot 
out of the same box or the same blind, it is evident that 



ETIQUETTE OF THE BLIND. 511 

to avoid wasting shots, and to get the most satisfaction 
out of the shooting, certain rules governing the con- 
duct of each man must be observed. These unwritten 
laws will be taught most men by their own good feel- 
ing and proper instincts ; but, on the other hand, it often 
happens that a very young man in the blind, carried 
away by excitement and enthusiasm, may do things 
which in cooler blood he would not think of doing, and 
which may prove very annoying to his companion. 

The laws governing such shooting are well under- 
stood by all men of experience, but since each one of us 
must have made a beginning in shooting, it will per- 
haps be easier for the inexperienced if some of these 
laws are here noted. 

These unwritten rules are based on the principle that 
where two men shoot together they are not rivals, each 
striving to outdo the other, but are partners, working 
for the common good, which in this case means the suc- 
cess of the day. It is therefore important that no 
shots should be wasted and that each one should do all 
in his power to bring to bag the birds which come with- 
in shot. Besides this, of course, there are the general 
laws of good manners, which govern in such a case 
just as they should in other relations of life. 

It is therefore to be understood that the two men 
should never interfere with each other; they should 
never fire at the same bird at the same time, and if sev- 
eral come together, the gunners should understand 
without words which bird belongs to each. 

If a single duck comes up that man should shoot at 



512 DUCK SHOOTING. 

it from whose side it comes, and he should have the op- 
portunity to use both barrels before his companion 
shoots. If the ducks come constantly from one side, 
as often they will come from the leeward, turns should 
be taken on the single birds. If they come from the lee- 
ward, tlie man to leeward should kill first, but if this is 
followed by another single, he should sit back in the 
blind and let the windward man kill the duck. Of 
course, in case of a miss with both barrels, the man who 
has not shot is at liberty to do what he can toward kill- 
ing the bird. If two or three, or more, birds come up 
to the decoys,, from any quarter, the man who is to lee- 
ward should shoot the bird or birds on his side, and the 
man to windward those on his. 

Sometimes three birds will come up, let us say, from 
the leeward ; the leading bird would naturally be taken 
by the windward man, while the man to leeward would 
take the second one, and the third would be anybody's 
bird. A natural exclamation from the leeward man 
would be, under such circumstances, "You take the 
one in the lead !" but before the birds get up to the point 
where they would be shot at, the bird which was lead- 
ing may have dropped back to second place. In such a 
case there is a possibility of a misunderstanding, for. 
if the windward man imagined that his companion 
referred to the individual duck that was in the lead, 
and which is now in second place, both men may shoot 
at this duck. Of course, no such blunder should ever 
occur. When one speaks of the leading duck he does 
not mean the particular duck that is leading at that 



ETIQUETTE OF THE BUND. 513 

moment, but the duck which is ahead when the shots 
are fired. We have more than once seen a blunder of 
this kind take place, by which one or more shots were 
lost. 

Under no circumstances will a thoughtful man, with 
proper instincts, shoot at a bird that properly belongs to 
his companion. Under no circumstances whatever will 
he shoot across his companion's face ; and if your gun- 
ning companion be guilty of such a breach as this, he 
should never again have an opportunity to shoot in the 
blind with you. 

It is not customary for men who are not well ac- 
quainted with each other to shoot in the same blind, 
but if, by any misfortune, a gunner should find himself 
in a blind with a man who evidently is so selfish that he 
wants to kill all the birds, no matter from which direc- 
tion they may come, he should leave the blind on the 
very first opportunity, and decline to return to it, or 
ever again to shoot with this person. Characteristics 
such as this, which would never be seen under the ordi- 
nary conditions of life, sometimes manifest themselves 
in the blind, and I know of one or two men, who have 
high reputations as sportsmen and high standing in 
the community, with whom, under no circumstances, 
would I share a blind or a box. 

Most men, however, do not intentionally impose on 
their companions, and many, who under stress of ex- 
citement will do things which are not fair, and which 
they should not do, may be checked by a quiet word, 
and taught by a little precept and a good deal of ex- 



514 DUCK SHOOTING. 

ample to act in the blind as men of good breeding 
should act everywhere. 

There are few things which contribute more to a 
man's contentment that to have with him in the blind 
a cheerful, good-natured, generous companion. There 
is nothing which so greatly detracts from the pleasure 
of shooting as to shoot with one who does not show a 
reasonable amount of self-control, and who wants all 
the shots, or claims all the birds. And so, unless you 
have as a sharer of your blind some one whom you 
thoroughly know, and have confidence in, it is far bet- 
ter for you to shoot alone. 




CHESAPEAKE BAY DOG. 

Every man who guns much for wildfowl ought to 
have a good water dog. For retrieving of this sort — 
except in regions where duck shooting is a regularly 
practiced sport — setters are very commonly used. 
They, however, have not sufficient strength or stamina 
for the work, and if constantly used are sure to break 
down and become valueless in a short time. The same 
objection applies, but in somewhat greater degree, to 
the different varieties of spaniels. The work of re- 
trieving in water, mud and ice is exceedingly hard and 
exhausting, and an animal of great strength and en- 
durance is required for it. Such hardy qualities we find 
in the Chesapeake Bay dog. 

For nearly one hundred years there have been 
bred about the head of Chesapeake Bay, and in 
later years in many ether localities, a strain of large 
reddish-yellow dogs, under this name, which are no- 
table for their fondness for the water, and for their 
strength and endurance. Notwithstanding all the ex- 
planations given for the origin of the breed, the well- 
bred Chesapeake Bay dog shows his ancestry on the 
surface. He is a Newfoundland dog, and nothing 
more. Not the Newfoundland of the modern dog 
shows, which, by crossing with the St. Bernard, has 
become an entirely different creature, very large, long- 
backed, heavy-headed and long-coated ; but the New- 

515 



5l6 DUCK SHOOTING. 

foundland dng of old times, before there were dog 
shows and before this breed had been greatly modified. 

The history of this breed is partly traditional and 
])artly authentic. It is said that about the year 1805 
there arrived at Baltimore a ship called the "Canton," 
which at sea had met with an English brig bonnd from 
Newfoundland to England, in a sinking condition. On 
this brig were found two puppies, a dog, which was 
brown in color, and a bitch, black. These pups were 
rescued and became the property of a Mr. Law. The 
dog was named Sailor, and his mate. Canton. The 
dog passed into the hands of Governor Lloyd, of Mary- 
land, and the bitch became the property of Dr. Stewart, 
of Sparrows Point. Their progeny became the Chesa- 
peake Bay dogs. 

The dog of the present day is almost always a faded 
brown or dark yellow in color, though it is quite usual 
to see puppies with some white markings, or even lilack 
and white. It may fairly be assumed that the black 
and black-and-white puppies, which are occasionally 
produced, being esteemed a bad color for the work the 
dogs are expected to do, have been gotten rid of and the 
bro\\n or yellow dogs bred from, so that the present 
color is due to selection. There are two types of coat, 
one short, thick and straight, or slightly wavy, and 
the other much longer and tightly curled. 

Not a few efforts have been made to improve the 
Chesapeake Bay dog by crossing it with other breeds ; 
the setter, the water spaniel and the English retriever 
having been used for this purpose. All of these efforts 



CHESAPEAKE BAY DOG. 517 

have been fruitless. Tlie real Chesapeake Bay dog, so 
far as I can learn, is better than any crossed animal, 
and strength, stamina and level-headedness are lost by 
any cross of which I have heard. 

The best color for the Chesapeake Bay dog is that 
commonly known as sedge color, which is not greatly 
different from the color of the long hair on the hump 
of the buffalo, and but little darker than that of the 
dead cane or grass where the dogs are used, so that it 
never attracts attention. But any of the faded browns 
which are common to this race are useful enough. 

This dog has an excellent nose, and a duck which 
has been brought down in the marsh is not likely to 
get away from it unless it creeps into some hole so deep 
that the dog cannot reach it or dig it out. 

Like every other dog, the Chesapeake requires an 
education, though this need not be nearly so elaborate 
as that given to setter or pointer. He must be taught 
to obey, to remain in the blind until ordered to fetch, 
and to bring the birds to the hand. Some years ago a 
correspondent of Forest and Stream, signing himself 
"Cayuga," wrote of this dog substantially as follows : 

"The Chesapeake, while still in the period of early 
puppyhood, takes naturally — or shall we say instinct- 
ively? — to retrieving ducks, but some special training 
must be given him to cause perfect retrieving to your 
hand. Then, again, this breed seems to require instruc- 
tion in retrieving other feathered game, such as plover, 
snipe and rail. It is not a bad thing to give him good 
yard instruction, teaching him to down, or charge, to 



5l8 DUCK SHOOTING. 

whoa, to hide, hold up, and to sneak, or crawl through 
cover, and, of course, to bring and carry for you. He 
will learn even quicker than your silky-haired setter, 
and when you have taught him everything you 
can think of, and he becomes an accomplished dog, 
* * * then you will pat that faded-looking coat and 
swear he is a darling ; and when you watch him lying 
hidden in the wild rice or beside you in the blind, the 
tip of his brown nose jusr visible as he keeps a sharp 
lookout for ducks, sometimes directing your attention 
to a stray incomer you have not seen, you wull say he 
is the best companion you ever had ; but when you see 
him — at the command — dash through icy-cold water, 
clambering over and diving under driftwood and cakes 
of ice after a winged duck, and when after a chase of a 
mile he gets her, and breasting the billows and current 
back, places her in your hands so tenderly that not a 
feather is torn, gives himself a shake, but not close 
enough to wet you, ready for another plunge, then you 
will know him for the hero he is. Again, let off both 
barrels into a flock of fliers and tell him to 'fetch 'em 
in.' Mark his sagacity. He passes the dead ones and 
those sorely wounded and goes straight for some crip- 
ple that is trying desperately to get away, and she has 
got to leave the water to escape him. If she dives, 
down he goes after her. So, one by one, he brings them 
in, the dead ones nearest at hand last. Oftentimes, in 
the haste and excitement of retrieving a half dozen or 
more ducks, he may neglect to place the dead ones in 
your hand, but, bringing them to shore, leaves them 



CHESAPEAKE^ BAY DOG. 519 

and plunges in again. This may be reason or an in- 
herited quahty, but if he is a thoroughbred, properly 
handled, he will bring the wounded to you, and after 
the batch has been secured, he will fetch up the pile 
deposited on the shore." 

In the chapter on Point Shooting I have said some- 
thing about the way in which these dogs work. There 
are among the old-time gunners witnesses enough to 
pile up volumes of testimony, showing that for cour- 
age, endurance and determination the Chesapeake Bay 
dogs stand in the front rank of all our breeds. I may 
quote one or two examples of this. The first, from a 
writer on Chesapeake Bay waters in Forest and Stream 
signing himself J. C. S., is as follows : 

"\A''e began shooting as soon as it was light and had 
varying success, as neither of us was a crack shot, but 
with the help of George and the dog we managed to 
gather twenty-one ducks in a couple of hours. The 
wind now blew a gale and the ri^'er was fearfully 
rough. Just then we heard a swan trumpeting. It was 
coming up the river, but beyond the reach of shot. 
Seizing the -2)2 rifle, I opened on him, and at the 
fourth or fifth shot had the good luck to aimble him 
down with a broken wing. Now came the difficulty. 
George absolutely refused to go after it, but said the 
river was too rough, and it was. By this time the dog, 
Taylor, was almost beside himself, whining and almost 
crazy to go. Bob loosed him ; he ran to the point, and 
jumped in, and swam in the direction that the swan 
had disappeared. We stood almost breathless and 



520 DUCK SHOOTING. 

watched him out of sight. Twenty minutes passed, 
and no Taylor. Half an hour went by, and no signs 
of the dog. I felt sorry we let the dog go, and we did 
not fire a gun after the dog left. Bob looked down his 
nose and said he guessed he'd seen the last of old Tay- 
lor. We packed up and got ready to go home, when 
George sang out : 'Ki ! yi ! Bress de Law'd ! Heah's 
Taylah !' And, sure enough, here came the good old 
dog, nearly fagged out, staggering along the shore, 
dragging that big swan. He had been gone a little 
over three-quarters of an hour." 

Another example of the readiness with which these 
dogs adapt themselves to circumstances is given by 
Mr. J. G. Smith, of Algona, Iowa, who says : "We 
had had a fine morning's shoot near a large slough, 
where there were cjuite a good many ducks and geese. 
About nine o'clock we thought the flight was over, so 
we gathered up our birds and started for the wagon. 
The country around us was all burnt over. We got out 
of the slough and onto the high ground, and were 
walking slowly along, when w^e saw a large Canada 
goose making for the slough. We sat down on the 
burnt ground and I called. The goose answered and 
turned directly toward us. I called again, and the 
goose came on, until he got within fifty yards of us. I 
told my friend to shoot, as he would come no nearer. 
He shot, and the goose fell almost to the ground. 
When within about four feet of the ground he seemed 
to recover, and I told the bitch to go. Away she went 
after him. They went over a ridge about one-half mile 



CHESAPEAKE BAY DOG. 52 1 

from us. I ran quickly to the top of the ridge, and 
when I got there I found my bitch coming out of a 
large slough with the goose in her mouth. It weighed 
fifteen pounds." 

The excellent nose which these dogs invariably have 
makes it quite certain that they will retrieve all birds 
that come to the ground. Besides this, they are com- 
monly very careful in the way in which they handle 
the game, and it is very unusual to find one that will 
mark the bird with his teeth. This, however, is of 
course largely a matter of training. They are excel- 
lent house dogs, and are usually kind to children and 
friendly with people whom they know, while at the 
same time they are excellent watch dogs, always to be 
depended on as guardians of the home. 




DECOYS. 



WOODEN. 



Although there are conditions under which decoys 
are not needed for wildfowl shooting, yet usually these 
are essential to success. The man who proposes to 
gun regularly must have decoys. 

The commonest forms of these are merely wooden 
blocks trimmed, or whittled, to the shape of a bird's 
body, to which is attached a separate piece of wood 
representing the neck and head. Such decoys are 
painted to imitate the color of the bird's plumage, are 
weighted below with a strip of lead or iron, to keep 
them right side up, and to a staple driven into the part 
of the block representing the bird's lower breast is tied 
a line running to the weight or anchor that rests on 
the bottom and holds the decoy in position. From 
these primitive decoys, which the professional gunners 
along the shore often make for themselves, and which, 
in fact, seem often as attractive to the ducks as much 
more expensive ones, there have developed decoys flat 
beneath, and with a wooden keel an inch or two deep, 
shod with metal ; decoys of cork, also usually flat be- 
neath ; others made of two blocks of cedar, hollowed 
out and pinned together by wooden nails, and finally, 
decovs made of canvas, which can be inflated, and 
from which the air is expelled when they are not in 

522 



WOODEN DECOYS. 523 

use, so that the decoys can be packed in very small 
compass. 

Sometimes the decoys have glass eyes put in them, 
and often they are very artistically painted. Quite 
commonly, however, they are painted with a bright 
and glossy paint, which glistens and shines in the sun's 
rays, so that birds approaching them from certain 
directions instantly recognize that they are not ducks, 
and decline to come to them. The collapsible decoys 
had, at one time, quite a vogue. They are open to the 
objection that they are perishable, and that when holes 
are made in them, whether by w^ar or by shot care- 
lessly fired at them, they are useless. Moreover, they 
are, of course, very light, and in rough or windy weath- 
er dance and roll on the water. Under certain condi- 
tions, however, they are very effective. 

Most practical men seem to prefer the old-fashioned 
w^ooden decoys; and, undoubtedly, a stand of good 
wooden decoys, with two or three or more live decoys 
toward the head and tail of the stand, forms a combina- 
tion more efficient than anything else. 

The gunner who finds himself without decoys at a 
place where the birds are coming well, can often supply 
the lack by using the birds that he kills. If the water 
is shallow, canes, stiff weed stalks, or willow shoots, 
sharpened and passed through the neck of a dead duck 
up to its head, with the other end stuck in the mud, will 
make of the dead bird a very good decoy. Some gun- 
ners always go prenared to make the most of the birds 
which they kill, in this way. They carry in the boat a 



524 DUCK SHOOTING. 

numl)er of steel wires about an eighth of an inch in 
diameter, and two feet long, and as the birds are killed 
these wires are set in the mud and run up through the 
duck's neck just far enough to allow the duck to rest 
as though sitting on the water. 

Sometimes at the edge of a pool, or little bay, where 
ducks have been feeding, a dozen sods or lumps of dirt, 
of the right size, scattered on the margin and in the 
shoal water, may attract the birds and bring them 
down within shot. At certain points in North Caro- 
lina we have seen these clods prove very successful 
decoys. 

As has been said, the value of a stand of ordinary 
wooden decoys is many times increased if there are 
added to them a couple of live decoys. These, when 
properly trained, are usually on the watch for birds 
in the air, and will quack vociferously at black birds, 
buzzards, herons, or wild geese. If they are not 
trained, good work for at least a part of the day may 
be had by separating them, tethering the drake at the 
head of the decoys and the duck at the foot. They 
will talk to each other at frequent intervals, and when 
they see other ducks in the air, both will call. If the 
weather is mild and still, artificial decoys which have 
no motion loom up tremendously over the smooth wa- 
ter, and black ducks, widgeon and some other species 
will not come anywhere near them ; but a single live 
decoy, moving about in the water, calling now and 
then, and dabbling or splashing, will bring in a bunch 
of birds at once. They seem to lose all suspicion and 



WOODEN DECOYS. 525 

pin their faith to the tethered bird. In the same way, 
in some parts of the country, throwing up the cap is 
practiced in order to attract birds at a distance, and 
for the same purpose diving- and flapping decoys have 
been invented. The device of having a string running 
through an eye on some of the decoys and then passing 
to the bhnd, so that when the gunner pulls the string 
the birds bob up and down, acts somewhat on the same 
principle. 

Live decoys are commonly carried to the marsh in 
coops, sometimes large enough to hold only one or 
two birds, and at others a greater number. For one 
who is gunning frequently, a crate made of heavy 
wire, but with a wooden floor, is more convenient than 
the rougher soap box with slats nailed over it that is 
often used. 

In many waters, as has already been stated, it is 
desirable to provide the live decoys with a stool to rest 
on. This consists of a long leg — sharp pointed, to be 
thrust down into the mud — supporting on the upper 
end a table six or eight inches in diameter, to which 
the duck may resort after it is tired of being in the 
water, and on which it can stand, cleanse its feathers 
and dry ofl^. While a duck, if it is free, can rest on 
the water for a long time without inconvenience, one 
that is tethered is likely soon to get wet and chilled, 
and may become sick. 

To the leg of the stool below the table is fastened 
a leather strap or line running up to two branches, 
each of which ends in a running noose. /\fter the 



526 DUCK SHOOTING. 

table has been firmly set in the mud, so that its upper 
surface is an inch under water, the two running- 
nooses are slipped about the duck's legs snugly, but 
not so tight as to impede circulation. If these nooses 
are made of canvas it will be found that they slip 
much less freely than if of leather, and that the duck, 
no matter how much it may move around, will seldom 
or never get free. 

Another method of securing live decoys is practiced 
on northern marshes. It is thus described by Mr. 
Frank D. Many, who says: "On each duck's leg I 
sew a small band of light canvas that has a small ring 
attached to it. Then I have a heavy piece of fish line 
with a small snap on one end of it. Then about one 
foot from the snap I put a small brass swivel. This 
keeps the line from getting tangled. Then at the end 
of the line, which is about S feet long, I fasten a pound 
weight. I take the duck out of the crate, snap the 
line to the ring on its leg, throw the weight into the 
water and the duck after it. The water being any- 
* where from 6 inches to 2 feet deep, this gives the duck 
a circle about 16 feet in diameter to play around in, 
and by throwing a couple of handfuls of corn once in 
a while it keeps them moving and makes a perfect de- 
coy." 

LIVE DECOYS. 

At certain points in the East where ducks and geese 
are scarce, and success in shooting not easily had. 



LIVE DECOYS. 527 

very special attention has been paid to the question 
of live decoys. Not only are birds used in connec- 
tion with the ordinary wooden decoys, being tethered 
in the ordinary fashion either in shoal water or on the 
shore, but beside this, birds are so trained that they 
may be turned loose to wander among the decoys at 
will, or may even be thrown from the blind up into 
the air to fly short distances, and then to alight 
among the decoys. As already stated, at Silver Lake, 
in Massachusetts, the various clubs possess hundreds of 
live goose decoys, of which a large proportion are so 
well trained that they are thrown into the air. Some 
account of the methods pursued there is given in the 
chapter on goose shooting. 

At one club they tie out about 70 geese on the beach. 
These birds are always oh the watch, and their calling 
is likely to attract any wild birds that come within 
sight. If the wild geese do not come readily to the 
decoys, the pens in which the geese are kept are opened 
by pulling a line, and the necessary number of birds 
for the work in hand are set free and used as fliers. 
This method of decoying the wild birds is extremely 
successful. It is the practice to allow the wild birds 
to swim in near to the decoys, and then to fire one 
barrel at them on the water and the other as they rise. 
When there are four or five men in the stand, the 
result of this is likely to be the destruction of the whole 
flock, unless it is a large one. 

Mr. Townsend's account of houseboat shooting on 
Lake Champlain shows how black ducks are used as 



528 DUCK SHOOTING. 

live decoys, as does also an article published in Forest 
and Stream, by Mr. J. O. Phillips, on duck shooting in 
Massachusetts : 

There is a certain charm about shooting in a thickly 
settled region which one does not get anywhere else. 
The game is scarce and hard to circumvent, and when 
a pair or two of shy old black ducks are successfully 
brought to bag, the satisfaction is often greater than 
the killing of ten times the number in a more favor- 
able locality. 

The season is late October. For two days a north- 
wester has been doing its best to remove the few re- 
maining leaves, until at last the wind has died away 
and the evening is calm and wonderfully clear. It is 
likely to be the coldest night of the season, and we go 
to bed in the best of spirits, almost certain of a shot 
in the morning. 

It is just beginning to lighten a little as we close the 
farmhouse door behind us and emerge into the breath- 
less stillness of the early morning. The watch-dog 
ambles up, then wags his tail, turns about and disap- 
pears in the gloom of the yard. How hard the ground 
feels, and what a noise each leaf makes under our feet 
as we walk briskly toward the lake. 

Long streaks of pink and gray appear in the east, 
but look closer and note that little speck against the 
sky as it glides downward across a bright band of or- 
ange light and drops lower and lower until it vanishes 
toward the lake. Ducks, twelve or fifteen at least, and 
we set our teeth and walk harder. 



LIVE DECOYS. 529 

Down toward the woods the path leads. Nothing 
has been heard save the distant crowing of sleepy 
cocks, but now a new sound greets us, the cheerful 
quacking of my faithful decoy ducks. 

We hasten into the pines and over a noiseless 
carpet of dry needles. How dark it is. A rustle in the 
brush and a faint streak, which show we have waked 
a rabbit, and a belated flock of robins make the air hum 
as they spring from a birch tree above our heads. 

Cautiously we creep out on to the point, sheltered 
on both sides by walls of brush. Ahead of us are the 
stand and coops, and as we come in sight, a watchful 
old drake sees us and sends out a ringing call. In- 
stantly a chorus of duck music from out on the water 
fills the whole air, and we walk boldly ahead, past the 
coops and into the stand, knowing that no wild birds 
can hear us through all that racket. 

Remove your hat and peer between the branches. 
Out there on the dark water float the bunches of 
wooden ducks, while in the shallow water along the 
beach the live decoys swim and quack. Count them 
all carefully. To the left there is a flock of fourteen, 
where there should be but nine, and even as you look, 
five silent shapes detach themselves from the rest and 
glide out in front without a ripple, and as if moved 
by some mysterious power. 

Caution is now the word. Against the paling lean 
three grim sentinels; one an 8-gauge, one a 10 and 
one a Winchester pump. But do not reach so ner- 
vously for your gun. It is always ready loaded, and 



530 DUCK SHOOTING. 

moreover there is plenty of time, for the game is still 
two gunshots distant. 

Suddenly, with hardly a moment's warning, the wild 
birds rise in the air with one accord, and vanish against 
the dark background of the pines on the opposite shore. 
We feel almost ready to cry. "What frightened 
them?" you ask. Nothing; it is only a way these shy 
black fellows have, and we could have done no better. 

And now Vv'e have time to note the surroundings, 
the great looming shapes of the distant ice houses, the 
tall chimneys of the pumping stations, all losing much 
of their artificial ugliness in the gloom of early sunrise. 
Behind us runs a high oak bluff, the tree-trunks just 
beginning to catch the rosy eastern glow. A few 
teams are heard rumbling over frozen roads, and across 
the lake we mark a night-watchman trudging home- 
ward, his lantern still lighted and swinging by his side. 
Slowly and solemnly comes the sound of the Wenham 
bell. Six times the message is sent out over the still 
water, and so loud it sounds that you can scarcely be- 
lieve the church is a mile away. 

All this time I am sweeping the lake with the glass, 
and at last I make out three little specks. They look 
as if they were drawing toward us. Yes, they are 
coming, as fast as they can swim. But they are small 
ducks, and a morning like this we should certainly get 
a better shot. 

Ah, I thought so. There is the bunch we saw drop 
in earlier. They haven't noticed us yet, but we will 
see what we can do. 



LIVE DECOYS. 53 1 

Softly, one after another of the flyers is hfted from 
the coop, and sent saiUng out over the hne of ducks, 
which reply in a deafening chorus. Some of them 
waddle back to the expected corn, and are again scaled. 

The small ducks, bufHeheads they are. have ap- 
prc ached to within 15 yards of the beach, and are rest- 
mg in a little knot, their heads tucked under their 
feathers. It would be easy to kill all three with one 
barrel, but we must wait. 

The big bunch have made up their minds, and slow- 
ly, ever so slowly, they begin to push toward us. You 
would scarcely believe they were moving, but every 
time you look they are a bit closer. Unless the un- 
foreseen occurs, as it sometimes does, we are pretty 
certain of a fine shot. 

They have reached a bunch of block decoys and stop, 
puzzled for a moment. Quickly hand me that little 
drake. See! he has done the work, and watch how 
eagerly they follow him, as he swims toward the beach. 

Take the lo-gauge, and be very careful you do not 
show yourself. I will count three, and we must shoot 
together at exactly the same moment. Let them get 
as near as we want them; about 25 yards will be the 
most efifective range for the open barrels of our big 
guns. I see you would pull now if I were not here to 
stop you, but above all things don't get excited or we 
are sure to make a mess of things. 

One, two — hold ! They have spread again, and we 
must wait for a better chance. One, two, three — we 
pull well together, and a deafening roar, a great splash- 



532 DUCK SHOOTING. 

ing of ducks, and a chorus of squawks from frightened 
decoys, is the result. Lucky is the man who can single 
out his bird and kill with the left barrel. I missed 
clean, and am too busy shooting at cripples with the 
pump gun to see what you are about. 

The fusillade is over, and we count eight dead ducks. 
Two only have flown away, besides the three buffle- 
heads, while one is swimming some 200 yards out. 

Slaughter, mere butcher}^ I hear some one say. But 
come with me and watch them, possibly four morn- 
ings, your eyes glued to sky and water, with nothing 
but a meager ruddy duck to reward your patience. 
Then, when the longed-for moment arrives, you will 
grasp your trusty 8-gauge with as much pride as a 
quail shooter his light 16. 

We have collected in all nine plump black ducks, 
fresh from their summer home, and with few excep- 
tions as finely flavored as any bird that swims. 

You will scarcely believe that we have been in the 
stand two hours. Game was in sight nearly all the 
time, and now that the excitement is over we remem- 
ber that we are hungry, and shouldering our game, 
tramp proudly back to breakfast. 



BREEDING WILDFOV/L. 

It is only within a very few years that breeding wild 
geese and ducks has been seriously attempted. At 
present, however, a number of persons are very much 



BREEDING WILDFOWL. 533 

interested in this pursuit, and there seems good reason 
to beheve that after a few years more of experiment, 
a number of species of our wildfowl will be so far 
domesticated that they can be depended on to breed 
in confinement. At present mallards and black ducks 
are practically the only live decoy ducks that are to be 
had, but at various points in the country a few Canada 
geese are being bred. 

The oldest and most successful Zoological Garden 
in the United States is that at Philadelphia, which has 
long been under the able superintendence of my friend, 
Mr. Arthur Erwin Brown. The Zoological Society 
has been remarkably successful in caring for the ani- 
mals exhibited. An inquiry of Mr. Brown concerning 
the breeding of wildfowl there, has drawn from him 
the following note : 

"We have exhibited in our garden, 57 of the 196 
species of swans, geese and ducks recognized by the 
British Museum catalogue, but I confess that we have 
not been successful in breeding them. A public gar- 
den is not the best place in the world in which to breed 
birds, for their nesting habits are usually shy, and 
there are too many people around during the long incu- 
bating period. Still, we ought to have done better, 
and I do not fully understand why we have not ; except 
that our ponds are a good deal exposed to visitors. 

"We have bred and raised many Egyptian geese, 
mallard ducks, redheaded ducks and summer ducks. 
The mute swan, the Canada goose, the Chinese goose 
and others have nested but failed to hatch. Those 



534 DUCK SHOOTING. 

that we have bred, were in a large lake with cover on 
the island, and the young have simply been let alone, 
with the result that all grew up except a few that fell 
victims to rats. I have no doubt at all that many 
water fowl which do not breed in a Zoological Gar- 
den, would do so in the seclusion of private ponds." 

At a club in Currituck Sound, where there is a stand 
of from twenty to twenty-five wild geese, two or three 
of the birds lay and hatch each year. The number 
raised, however, is comparatively small, for the eggs 
are few, and the danger to the goslings after they are 
hatched, from minks, coons, and other wild animals, 
very great. At other points goose breeding is more 
successful, and no doubt a considerable number of the 
birds are reared in captivity each year. 

As time goes on, the captive wildfowl will no doubt 
adapt themselves to their surroundings so far as to 
breed in confinement. The late Major Fred Mather 
was at one time the owner of a very considerable flock 
of wildfowl of various sorts. He met the usual dif- 
ficulties and discouragements, but was successful in 
raising many wood ducks, and bred other species. An 
account of his -flock, written a year or two before his 
death, was published in Forest and Stream, and is, in 
part, as follows : 

Discarding all the old-squaws, sea coots, wdiist- 
lers, and other birds which cannot be confined to a diet 
of grain, vegetable and such animal food as our tame 
ducks get, there are ten American ducks well worthy 
of domestication and of keeping pure, by one who loves 



BREEDING WILDFOWL. 535 

to have such things about him. Few know how beau- 
tiful a Hving wood duck or teal is, or how one gets to 
love them and have them about. What if a green- 
winged teal, the smallest of all ducks, is no larger than 
a pigeon ; the question is not one of meat as it was with 
primitive man, when he domesticated the mallard. 1 
have spent more dollars than I could well afford on this 
fancy, and if wealthy would prefer it as a "fad" to any 
other. A few surplus birds were sold, but not enough 
to pay for many wild birds which came dead, when 
the only thing left for me was the express charges. 
Then there was food, loss by minks and other vermin ; 
but I never faltered. 

When you get a wild bird never clip a wing, unless 
as a preliminary to pinioning shortly after. When 
you cut the stiff quills of the primaries, they will split 
in time and become like "hang nails" on a human hand ; 
they split up into the flesh and become sore, do not 
shed, arid sometimes cause blood poisoning. If they 
shed and new feathers grow, the bird must be caught 
and clipped twice a year, with a chance of its escape. 

A bird once pinioned needs no more attention, and is 
prevented from flying while it lives. Only one wing 
must be pinioned, so that an attempt to fly turns it 
over on the ground. Lay the bird on its back, wrap a 
towel about one wing and the body, leaving the other 
free. Have your assistant, who holds the bird, press 
his thumb on the main artery where he feels the pulse, 
at the point marked P in the illustration. Pluck the 
fine feathers between the joint A and the line C, and 



53*^ 



DUCK SHOOTING. 



also four of the secondary feathers whose quills come 
in the line of the proposed cut, B. Never unjoint the 
wing at A; it leaves a large knuckle which will con- 
tinually get bruised and sore. No surgeon w^ould am- 
putate a leg or an arm at a joint. 




Having bared the part of feathers, make a cut on 
the line B, from close to the junction of the little 
thumb E, to the wing. If you cut on the line C, there 
will be several secondary feathers left, and birds so 
pinioned can often fly over a fence and for some dis- 
tance. There is merely a skin over the two bones on 
the line B, and but a trifling cut need be made. Then, 
with a stout knife, cut the bones, taking care not to cut 
the skin back of them. Turn up the ends of the bones ; 
skin back to the dotted line D, thus leaving a flap to 
turn over the amputation. Stitch this flap over the 
wound with three or four stitches of sewing silk, no 
cotton ; bend down the little thumb with the silk so 
that the scar will be protected, and let the bird go. 

Properly performed, there should be no loss of blood, 
to speak of, and the wound will heal in three days. 
I once pinioned twelve ducks inside an hour, and if 



BREEDING WILDFOWL. 537 

they had been handed me without delay, I could have 
easily made the number fifteen. Care must be taken 
that no bone protrudes or the wound will never heal. 
I have brought pinioned birds with protruding bones, 
where some thoughtless fellow had merely chopped the 
wing off with a hatchet. Such birds are always poor, 
and will never breed. Of course, I amputated the 
wing above the joint A, and made a clean job and a 
healthy bird. 

With young birds, at six or eight weeks old, or as 
soon as the pinfeathers start, all that is necessary is 
a pair of sharp scissors to clip the line B, leaving the 
thumb. 

Ankylosis is a Greek term often used in pathology 
for a stiff joint. Our joints must be used or they pro- 
test, as we see when we have been "cramped up" in a 
car or coach all day. Keep an elbow or knee in a fixed 
position for three months, more or less, and it is no 
longer a joint, the disease known as ankylosis has set 
in, and there you are. 

When a bird is pinioned, the mutilation is plainly 
shown when it stretches its wings for exercise of its 
joints, but when the wings are closed, only a careful 
observer would note that the primaries of only one 
wing reached above the back. I would not now pinion 
a bird larger than a mallard; because the bones are 
large, the birds are heavy, and there is a better way to 
do it, so that when at rest the birds are perfect, and 
only when they stretch their wings is there any evi- 
dence that they are not symmetrical. 



538 DUCK SHOOTING. 

This plan is best for geese, pelicans, sandhill cranes, 
swans and other large birds. The tools are fine soft 
copper wire and an awl of proper size. 

Have an attendant or two to hold the bird, which 
must be blindfolded. Draw the wing back at the joint 
marked A in the cut; drill holes in several of the pri- 
maries and secondaries, marked i and 2 ; put the wires 
through in several places, binding the feathers together 
so as to keep the joint from moving; fasten the wires 
and the job is done. 

The joint will become ankylosed before the next 
month, the feathers will be shed, but that wing can 
never be extended for flight, yet the bird is perfect. 
We occasionally meet men with stiffened joints, caused 
by improper treatment, but there is no suffering after 
the first few days of so confining a joint, Nature cares 
for that, and while this treatment is best for large 
birds, I am not sure but it would be best for smaller 
ones. 

Of the cinnamon teal I know nothing, but have 
owned and bred both the blue-wing and the green- 
wing. If there is a wild duck that inherits less fear 
of man than these two teal I don't know it. Of the 
two, perhaps the slightly larger blue-wing is quicker 
to make friends with man, but here is a story of the 
green-wing. 

At the New York fish-hatching station at Cold 
Spring Harbor, Long Island, I had a fair collection of 
my pets. There was a long, no-account pond made by 
throwing up a highway, and in this the tide rose and 



BREEDING WILDFOWL. 539 

fell. A picket fence on one side and poultry netting 
on the other, held a few ducks, some green-wing teal 
among them. Every day, and several times a day, I 
took them watercress, duckweed, lettuce, cabbage, or 
other delicacies, in addition to their grain and animal 
food, and always talked to the birds as they fed. 
Talking is a most important thing in the domestica- 
tion of wildfowl, as it is in the training of domestic 
animals. The talk was always the same : "Hello, little 
birds ; I never did see such pretty little birds ; come up 
here and get some good things." There was no 
thought that the words would be understood, but there 
was finally a distinct connection between them and the 
feeding, so that when the corduroy working coat was 
left off, and a morning trip to the city in frock coat 
and "nail-keg" hat was in order, the flock would fol- 
low me when I was outside the picket fence, if I saluted 
them with : "Hello, little birds," etc. 

May came, and the flock was short one female green- 
wing. With an anathema on all minks and weasels, 
there was work to be done in the hatchery, and the 
little teal was forgotten, until one morning she ap- 
peared on the pond with four fluffy little balls of down, 
about as big as a piece of soap after a hard day's wash- 
ing. They could swim well, and had implicit con- 
fidence in their mother, who evidently thought them 
young teal, but they could have taken refuge in a 10- 
bore gun with room to spare. I called the men from 
the hatchery, and we netted the family out. Mr. Teal 
w^as off conviving with friends, and paid no attention 



540 DUCK SHOOTING. 

to the raid on his family; but JMrs. Teal, when cap- 
tured, looked up at me and remarked : "Quack, quack," 
and was answered in the same language. This was 
satisfactory, and when she was put in a special pool 
with her young, she seemed to realize that man was 
not only her friend, but the friend of all that she held 
most dear, and, mother-like, would give her life for. 

As the blue-wing teal is the easiest to approach of 
all wild ducks, so their young are naturally tame. I 
would much like a chance to try the effect of keeping 
the young of both these teal without pinioning, as has 
been done with mallards. 

I have bred more of the wood duck than any other 
species. When I began the work they were the only 
wild ducks that I could get in quantity. They were 
netted in great numbers in Michigan for market, and 
as I would pay several times the market price, I bought 
large numbers, and helped stock zoological gardens in 
Europe. In the late '6o's and early '70's not one bird in 
ten would la}^ eggs for me, but I raised a few. Then, 
when I left Honeoye Falls, N. Y., in 1876, the flock 
had to be disposed of. From that time until 1883 I 
had no country home, where my pet fancy could be re- 
sumed. Then these birds were scarce, the once prolific 
Michigan lake where Northern-bred birds stopped to 
feed on their way South in early fall no longer paid 
the netters, but I got a few. 

I doubt if this bird can ever be domesticated. I 
learned how to .breed them with certainty, but after 
being bred for ten generations in confinement, they 



BREEDING WILDFOWL. 541 

would escape, if possible, and never return. They dis- 
trust man after he once catches them to pinion them, 
when a few weeks old. They have been so tame as to 
run to meet me with a dish of bread and milk, or other 
food, and climb into it and feed greedily until once 
taken in hand. Then they became suspicious. No 
bird likes to be taken in hand. The stiff quills must 
hurt when pressed into the flesh. Pigeon men handle 
their birds by a grip on the wings close to the body ; 
ducks should be so handled. Domestic hens may be 
handled by the legs. The man who takes a duck by 
the legs will have a crippled bird that must be killed, 
for their legs are weak, and all attempts to heal a 
broken leg by splints or plaster bandages, by me, have 
been failures, but then it is recorded that I am not a 
surgeon. 

On a later trial of breeding these birds, there was a 
train of thought something like this : In nature every 
female breeds ; with me it has been only one in ten ; 
the climate is right, for they breed here; the trouble 
must be in the food. In western New York I have 
fed corn, wheat, rye and oats, with such vegetation as 
lettuce, purslane, "pusley," young cabbage, water- 
cress and duckweed, all of which they were very fond 
of, yet they laid their eggs sparingly. Evidently some- 
thing was lacking, and then the fact that they had been 
seen to pick insects from overhanging leaves, eat frog 
spawn and gobble up polh^-wogs and snails as well as 
small frogs, suggested that what was needed to round 
out their natural diet was animal food. The new ra~ 



542 DUCK SHOOTING. 

tion having been issued in the next February, there 
was rejoicing- in April and May, when every pair of 
wood ducks began nesting. 

All the wildfowl of my acquaintance nest on the 
ground, with the following exceptions : some "tree 
<lucks" of Central and South America, wood ducks, 
Chinese mandarins and the pretty little "hooded mer- 
ganser," also called "little saw bill." If the other mer- 
gansers, or "sheldrakes," nest in trees, I do not know, 
but suspect them of it. 

The ducks which nest on the ground may be left to 
their own devices, if you give them a chance for se- 
clusion, but for those which nest in hollow trees we 
must provide natural conditions. Take a box 12 inches 
high by 7 inches square inside, tight on all sides, but 
with a round 4-inch hole in the middle of one side, 
set it on a post 2 feet above ground, w^ith a slanting 
board leading to the hole, in which fine straw and 
leaves are placed, and the bird will do the rest. The 
male wood duck and mandarin will stand guard at 
the entrance for a while, but tires of it before the four 
weeks are up, and abandons the job. Some males in- 
jure the young, and it is best to remove the drakes be- 
fore hatching. I have had two broods in a season by 
removing the first nesting eggs, but otherwise one 
brood is the rule. The male moults in June, and will 
not take any part in a second brood ; he then resembles 
the female, and does not get his bright plumage again 
until August. Young drakes show red on the bill at 
two months old. 



BREEDING WILDFOWL. 543 

Hens are useless for hatching the small, tender 
ducks, and the little woodie is very tender. The 
young ducks come to her for shelter, and she kicks 
them to death by scratching for them. I have lost 
several broods in this way. Then I got the "call 
ducks," those dwarf, or bantam, mallards bred in Hol- 
land for calling wildfowl — cute little ducks, the female 
being persistently noisy if separated from her mate — 
but the "calls" were not broody when I wanted them to 
be, or I did not have enough of them. 

The first year a wood duck has four to six eggs, the 
next year eight to twelve. The greatest number that 
I ever got from one was seventeen. 

Some writers claim that the mother takes them in 
her bill and others say that she carries them on her 
back. I had a string of pens back of my house — a pair 
in each, for they are better to be separated — and usually 
I found the mother and her brood on the water in the 
morning; but on two occasions I saw them leave the 
nest. The mother went first to the pool and called : 
she had brooded them for twenty-four hours, or more, 
and they were strong. Then one after another the 
little things climbed out of the box and tumbled to the 
ground, or to the water. 

They had to climb 4 to 6 inches of plain board, but 
they did it. I have seen them climb a lo-inch base 
board and go through a i-inch poultry netting when 
alarmed. They weigh nothing worth mentioning, and 
they have claws as sharp as cambric needles. Thev 
have pricked my hands until they bled when pinioning 



544 DUCK SHOOTING. 

them at eight weeks old. I can easily believe that they 
can climb up a hollow tree and drop 20 feet into the 
grass without injury. What need of such sharp claws 
and climbing ability if not for leaving the nest ? 

I once had a wood duck that climbed 3 feet of poul- 
try netting by aid of wings, and then sat on the selvage 
wires, which were less than |- inch in diameter, and 
this shows how small a thing their feet can grasp. 
She went outside into a swamp every day, and tried to 
coax her mate out, but he wouldn't, or couldn't, and 
she gave it up and nested in the box provided for her. 
Usually there was a 3-inch strip on top of the netting to 
prevent this. 

I have spoken of the mandarin duck. It is a Chinese 
bird that in everything but color is a wood duck. The 
prevailing hue with them is old gold. The male has 
two "fans" on its wings, broad- webbed single feathers, 
which it can erect, swan fashion. Tastes differ in 
comparing the mandarin with our native bird; the 
colors are not so bright, but there is the softness of hue 
which we admire in Oriental rugs. 

The redhead is bred in Europe, where it is known as 
"pochard," but the canvas-back they have not. I had 
many inquiries for this bird from over the water, and 
went to Havre de Grace, Md., to try to get cripples or 
netted birds, but got only promises. The gunners 
there get $3, and over, a pair for them, and I offered 
$15, and would take ten pairs, but got none. 

The widgeon, both American and European, I have 
had, but never bred from them ; the minks would not 



BREEDING WILDFOWL. 545 

permit it. The pintail I bred once, but lost the 
brood. 

If I ever try to breed our beautiful wildfowl again, 
the pools will be made mink-proof by a brick or stone 
fotmdation 2 feet under ground, and i foot above it. 
The fence on this, with inviting openings for a mink 
to enter and remain in a trap until he has an interview 
with me. 

Mr. Wilton Lockwood, of Boston, Mass., is an en- 
thusiastic devotee of wildfowl breeding and has had 
great success, but I am unfamiliar with the details of his 
work. 




BLINDS, BATTERIES AND BOATS. 



HOW BLINDS ARE MADE. 



In duck shooting a blind is anything that conceals 
the gunner from the birds. It may be a pit, or a sunk- 
en barrel, or a fringe of leaves or bushes, or a pile of 
ice cakes, or a stone wall ; but whatever it is, it must be 
something to which the birds are so far accustomed 
that they will not notice it as markedly different from 
the rest of the landscape and so be suspicious of it. 

Of late years various artificial blinds have been de- 
vised. One is a screen made of burlap, behind which 
the gunner hides. Burlap is of precisely the proper 
color for a blind in autumn or spring, but an obvious 
objection to putting up a more or less tight screen of 
this sort is that when the wind blows, as one always 
hopes it will when he is duck shooting, the blind is likely 
to be carried away, or at least to be flattened to the 
ground. 

Another artificial blind is a coat and hood made of 
grass. This turns the gunner into what looks like a 
Robinson Crusoe, but we can imagine that under some 
conditions it may be a useful disguise. 

Along the South Atlantic coast, the commoner forms 

546 



HOIV BLINDS ARE MADE. 547 

of blinds are made from the reeds or bushes of the 
marsh along which point shooting is done. On the 
great lakes and rivers of the North, blocks of ice or 
heaps of snow are used for winter shooting; and for 
fall shooting, hiding places composed of flat stones laid 
up into a wall, and built so early in the season that 
when the ducks arrive in their migrations, they see the 
blinds and become accustomed to them as natural feat- 
ures of the landscape. In the West, weeds, cornstalks, 
straw and other material commonly found in the fields 
may be used in the construction of blinds. 

The bough houses in the Chesapeake Bay are built 
early, and being unoccupied until the shooting season 
begins, have no terrors for the ducks, which have be- 
come accustomed to them. These bough houses are 
commonly built over the water — often at quite a long 
distance from the shore — by driving down four stout 
poles until they are solidly fast in the mud or soil, con- 
necting these poles by strips of scantling or two-inch 
stuff, placing a flooring of plank on this frame, and 
then, at the height of three and a half or four feet 
above the flooring, tacking a railing to the corner posts. 
Over the four sides of this structure, boughs of ever- 
greens — cedar or pine — are tacked so as to conceal the 
fresh lumber and the persons within the blind. On 
the fourth side, which usually faces toward the shore, 
a door or passageway is left for ingress and egress. 
Often the water in the neighborhood is baited. Such 
bough houses are provided with chairs, shelves for am- 
munition and other conveniences. 



548 DUCK SHOOTING. 

The bush bHnds of the eastern shore of Virginia, of 
Back Bay, Currituck Sound, and the other sounds to 
the southward, which are to-day such favorite resorts 
for fowl, are much simpler. As a rule, the waters are 
very shoal, and the bush blinds consist of nothing more 
than a number of stiff pine branches, with the foliage 
still attached, shoved down into the water close to the 
sides of the gunner's skiff. After he has tied out his 
decoys, he poles his skiff into the open end of this 
cluster of surrounding bushes, and, crouching down, 
is perfectly concealed from the birds, except when they 
are immediately above him. As the bush blinds are 
often built on the feeding grounds, they are likely to 
interfere greatly with the comfort of the fowl, which 
perhaps pass from one bush blind to another, con- 
stantly shot at as they sweep over the decoys, and if 
they find all their feeding grounds occupied, may fly 
a long w'ay, and for some time afterward shun the 
places wiiere they have been so fusilladed. 

As the goose shooter in the West digs his pit in the 
stubble, so the goose shooter in the East occupies his 
goose box, which may be wholly above land or water 
or may consist of a cask or box deeply sunk in the edge 
of the marsh or in the mud flat. In either case the gun- 
ner is w'holly out of sight until he rises to shoot, and 
the birds have no warning whatever. In character, 
these devices thus are approaches to the battery or 
sink-box and the sneak boat, which are floating en- 
gines sunk so nearly to the water level that they cannot 
be seen until the birds are immediately over them. 



THE BATTERY. 549 



THE BATTERY. 

The battery is a watertight box, just long, wide and 
deep enough to contain a man lying down, set in the 
middle of a solid platform which floats it. From one 
end and the two sides of the platform, wings — loosely 
hinged to the sides so that they may rise and fall with 
the waves — run out over the water. Usually all about 
the margin of the box are narrow screens of sheet lead 
which, when turned up, oppose four or six inches of 
height to any wave that by chance may break over the 
wings and deck, and so keep the water out of the box 
in which the gunner is reclining. The deck and its 
wings should be as near the level of the water as pos- 
sible, and to this end the box must be ballasted ; more 
weight, of course, being required for a light man than 
for a heavy one. On the platform commonly rest a 
number of decoy ducks, cast from iron, to sink it to its 
proper level. At the head end of the box, there is 
often what is called a head-board, a little pillow of 
wood to raise the gunner's head, so that his eyes are 
just above the level of the box. 

The battery is commonly anchored on the feeding 
ground, head to the wind, and the decoys are put out 
about it and strung away to leeward, though most of 
them are on the side of the box toward which the gun- 
ner shoots. (See diagram facing page 434.) The 
fowl coming up to the decoys are expected to fly over 
those to leeward, and to the left, and the gunner, as 
thev come, rises to a sitting position and shoots. 



550 DUCK SHOOTING. 

Sometimes double batteries — to be used by two men 
— are employed. 

Boxes are sometimes made about four feet square 
at the water's level, and four feet deep, the sides slop- 
ing inward toward the bottom, so that there the box 
is only about eighteen inches square. There is a small 
platform, and there are small wings, a seat, and a shelf. 
There is abundant room to get down out of sight if the 
birds are coming, 

A better notion of the battery and its constructions 
will be had by referring to the plans and specifications 
given herewith. The gunner's comfort depends large- 
ly on the box, and it should, therefore, be constructed 
of the best material — that is to say, of white pine or 
white cedar — and be absolutely tight. The ends of the 
box may be of the same material as the sides, but 
should be thicker. Sometimes the ends are made of 
white oak, one and a half inch thick. Running 
across the platform at the head and the foot of the 
box, are two oak timbers firmly bolted to either end 
of it. These should be six inches longer than the plat- 
form is wide, and should project three inches on either 
side, thus offering some support to the side wings, and 
not leaving the hinges to bear all the strain. The plat- 
form should be well fitted and tight, and battens may 
be nailed across the boards at either end of the plat- 
form, and one on either side of the box, running out 
to the edge of the platform, and firmly braced to the 
box by angle irons. 

In old times the wings were made of boards hinged 







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PLAN OF SINGLE BATTERY TOP AND END VIEWS. 



552 DUCK SHOOTING. 

together, but they did not keep down the sea, were 
noisy, and had other objections. The modern battery 
differs from that of old times chiefly in its head wing, 
or head fender, as it is often called. This is a piece of 
canvas nearly square, stained gray, and as wide as the 
platform and the two side wings, which is tacked to 
four or five strips of wood which keep it floating 
on the water, the strips lying under the canvas. The 
color of the canvas should be made, as nearly as pos- 
sible, that of the water in which the battery is to 
be used. To the middle of the last strip — that is 
to say. the one furthest from the battery — an an- 
chor rope is tied, to which the anchor is fastened. 
When the battery is rigged, this anchor is thrown 
overboard and the head fender is unrolled to its full 
length. This is commonly done by using a light 
boat-hook ten feet long. The point of the boat-hook 
is inserted in the hole through which the anchor rope 
is fastened, and the head fender- is thus forced away 
from the battery until it lies flat upon the water; 
then by using the boat-hook as a pole and shoving 
on the bottom, the battery is pushed to leeward un- 
til the anchor rope is taut. The battery will usually 
then swing so that the head fender is directly to wind- 
ward of the battery. But sometimes — for example, 
when the tide is running at right angles to the wind, 
and the wind is light — it may be necessary to use the 
boat-hook to overcome the force of the tide, and to 
anchor the battery-in its proper position. 

From the foot of the platform or deck, another rope 



HEAOrCNDER 13 Fr 6 //^. y- to Ft. 






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PLAN OF DOUBLE BATTERY TOP AND END VIEWS. 



554 DUCK SHOOTING. 

runs out, and to this a stone is attached for a foot an- 
chor. This is thrown overboard after the head anchor 
rope is taut, and this holds the battery head and foot. 
The foot anchor is within reach of the gunner occupy- 
ing the box, and the stone is used because it can 
easily be hauled up, while often an anchor could not be 
lifted. In case of a change of wind, this arrangement 
enables the gunner to trip the foot anchor and let the 
battery swing with the wind. He can then throw out 
his foot anchor again, and still have his battery prop- 
erly adjusted to the wind. 

If, however, there should be a decided change in the 
direction of the wind, both battery anchors must be 
lifted, and the battery towed around to a new position 
and the decoys rearranged to suit the change. 

When the battery is on board the sloop, the head 
fender is rolled up and rests on the battery's deck, 
being secured by a stop at each end. 

A boat-hook is a necessary implement with a battery. 
It should be light but strong, and it is a good plan to 
mark the staff, from the point of the hook up the pole, 
with a scale in feet and half feet, so that it can be used 
as a sounding rod to ascertain the proper depth of 
water to rig in on the flat. This depth rarely exceeds 
six feet, the average being perhaps four and a half 
feet. The boat-hook is kept in the stool boat, but it is 
a great convenience to have in the box a rod just short 
enough to lie in the box, and armed with a hook at 
one end. Such a rod is very convenient in hauling up 
the tail stone, or pulling in the side fenders, or regulat- 



THE BATTERY. 555 

ing the decoys near the battery. It is especially nec- 
essary when the tail stone has been pulled out on ac- 
count of some slight shift of wind, and the decoys must 
be reset alongside of the battery. 

Most single batteries are equipped with eight iron 
duck decoys, each weighing about twenty-three or 
twenty-five pounds. The weight of the gunner, of 
course, regulates the number of these to be used, and 
the weather conditions may also have a bearing on this, 
since, sometimes by removing a few of the iron decoys, 
a battery may be used in quite rough water, although 
the ducks will not come up as well if the battery stands 
high. 

Double batteries require an increased number of the 
iron duck decoys, or sometimes the number is lessened, 
and side weights, weighing usually fifty-six pounds — 
and bybatterymen called 56's — are hung on the timbers 
of the battery platform under the side fenders. These 
are cut away on the end, so as to be somewhat notched, 
and the weight is hung by a looped rope. A hook, 
something like a cotton-hook, is used to lift these 
weights off and on. 

Since the gunner reclines in the box, it is evident 
that any water which may enter it will cause him dis- 
comfort ; it is therefore the practice to have a bottom- 
board of some light stuff, about the length of the box, 
but less wide by one quarter of an inch on either side, 
so that the water which enters may flow down under 
it. This board is raised above the box by very thin 
cross strips tacked to it, and at its lower end it is cut 



556 DUCK SHOOTING. 

in two, so that a piece, perhaps a foot long, may be 
raised to bail out water if it should become necessary. 
On the top of the bottom-board, perhaps ten inches 
from the head of the box, a narrow strip is tacked, 
which holds the edge of the slanting head-board, which 
lifts the gunner's head so that he can see over the top 
of the box. 

Most batteries of to-day have in them a head-board 
— just referred to — that is to say, a slanting board 
running from the end of the box down to the bottom, 
at a gentle angle, which serves as a pillow to lift the 
batteryman's head high enough so that his eyes are 
above the edge of the box. Upon this head-board may 
be placed a rubber pillow, but most men use an old coat 
or something of the sort to rest the head on. 

The method of setting out decoys in battery shoot- 
ing has been described and illustrated already. 

SPECIFICATIONS FOR DOUBLE AND SINGLE BATTERIES. 

Boxes — Inside length, 6 ft. 3 in. to 6 ft. 6 in. ; inside width, at 

top 22 in., at bottom 18 in. ; depth, 14 in. ; sides, i in. thick ; 

ends, I 1-4 in. thick; bottom, i in. thick and laid crosswise. 

Boxes pinned to platform by locust-wood pins, two to head 

and two to foot of each box. 
Platforms — Beams, 2 in. thick and 4 in. deep at centre, with i 

in. crown to upper side; deck, i in. thick. 
Head Fenders — Battens, i in. thick and 4 in. wide, with canvas 

tacked on top. 
Side Fenders — Frame of i 1-2 in. strips from 3 to 6 in. wide, 

as per plans, with canvas tacked on top. 
Fenders joined to platform by hinges of leather or canvas. 
Sheet Lead 6 in. wide to be tacked around edges of boxes, to be 

bent as required when seas wash over the platform. 



SKIFFS AND SNEAK BOATS. SS7 



SKIFFS AND SNEAK BOATS. 

It is hardly necessary to say much about gunning 
skiffs, for there are almost as many sorts of these as 
there are places where gunning is practiced. Usually 
the gunners of each locality have developed for them- 
selves the form of a boat best suited to their needs, and 
as a rule the wandering sportsman may have confidence 
in the boat of the locality. 

On the New England coast, the commonest gunning 
skiff is flat-bottomed, partly decked over, but with a 
roomy cockpit protected by combings. A much larger 
vessel of the same type is used on the southern broad- 
waters. These skiffs are good and serviceable boats, 
both speedy and stiff. Sometimes, on the New Eng- 
land coast, one will see one of the little flat sculling 
boats shaped like a pumpkin seed, flat in the water, and 
just about long enough for a man to lie in. In the 
South, open, flat-bottomed skiffs drawing very little 
water are used, or sometimes dug-outs. One of the 
most useful boats for general purposes, and one w'hich 
has a wide popularity North and South, is the Barne- 
gat sneak box. It can be sailed, or rowed or poled, 
and may also be used somewhat like a battery, being 
sunk almost to the water's level by taking sand or 
w'ater-bags aboard, and concealed by spreading sand or 
dead grass on the flat deck. 

On some waters gunners carry rubber bags in their 
boats, and when they reach the ground, fill the bags 



558 



DUCK SHOOTING. 



with water, and placing them on either side of the 
centreboard trunk, sink the sneak boat until its deck is 
awash. 

The following description of one of these boats is 
taken from Forest and Stream: 




Jo, 



Fig. 4. 




h- 



SNEAK BOAT. 



a, a — apron, i, i, i shows where it is nailed to deck. b. b- 
Cockpit. c — Trunk, d. d, d — Stool rack, e, e — Rowlocks. Fij 
4 shows rowlocks. 



Length, 12 feet; width amidships, 4 feet; width of 
stern, 2 feet g^ inches ; depth of stern, 7 inches. Sprung 
timbers, all of one pattern, 9-16 x 13-16 inch; distance 
apart. 8 inches ; deck timbers, natural bend, i x 7-9 inch. 



SKIFFS AND SNEAK BOATS. 559 

Cockpit, inside measurement, length, 3 feet 4 inches ; 
width at bow and stern, i8i inches; amidships, 19 
inches. Combing, height of inside at bow and stern, 
2^ inches ; amidships, 2 inches. From bottom of comb- 
ing to top of ceihng, 13 inches. Trunk on port side, 
set slanting to take a 15-inch board trunk placed along- 
side and abaft of forward corner of combing. Boards 
of boats, white cedar, f inch; deck, narrow strips, 
tongued and grooved. Rowlocks, height, 6 inches, 
from combing, 9 inches; middle of to stern, 4 feet 7 
inches, made to fold down inboard and to fasten up 
with a hook. Stool racks run from rowlocks to stern, 
notched at ends into fastenings of rowlocks, also 
notched at corners and hooked together, rest against a 
cleat on deck outside, and are hooked to the deck in- 
side. In a heavy sea the apron is used. It is held up 
by a stick from peak to combing. Thus rigged, the 
boat has the reputation of being able to live as long 
as oars can be pulled. The apron is tacked to the deck 
about two-thirds its length. The wings are fastened 
to the top and bottom of the rowlocks. Mast hole, 2f 
inches ; 2 inches from combing. Drop of sides from 
top to deck, 5|- inches ; dead-rise, 8 inches. Over cock- 
pit a hatch is placed. Everything connected with the 
boat is placed inside, gunners often leaving their guns, 
etc., locking the hatch fast. The boats sail well and, 
covered with sedge, are used to shoot from. With the 
hatch on, a person can be protected from rain ; and with 
blankets, can be accommodated with a night's lodging. 
A variety of boats and canoes used on the lakes and 



560 DUCK SHOOTING. 

waterways of Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin and Michi- 
gan are described and figured below, substantially 
from an article which appeared in Forest and Stream 
in the year 1890. 

There are a number of boats which may claim the 
old Indian birch in their ancestry. Some of the duck 
shooters of Canada use a "Rice Lake canoe," which is 
near about a white man's canoe, without the teeter iness 
and skittishness of the birch, though a lighter goer 






NEE-PE-NAUK BOAT. 

among the rushes. Something like a birch is the idea 
of the Nee-pe-nauk boat, used by the Chicago club men 
on the Northern Fox River. 

This is a smooth-skinned boat, and the skin is made 
by screwing one longitudinal piece directly upon an- 
other, the boat being formed upon a mold. There are 
no ribs in the boat, and no braces except under the deck, 
fore and aft of the cockpit. The deck is light, and the 
cockpit ample for paddling, which is the method of pro- 



SKIFFS AND SNEAK BOATS. 56 1 

pulsion. About the cockpit is a folding canvas comb- 
ing, which can be raised in case of a sea. The boat 
sits low in the water. It is stiff, easy-going and suit- 
able for its purpose, which includes a long journey 
daily to and from the club house, partly in open water. 
The birch canoe folded and closed at the ends and 
provided with cockpit and combing, a sort of kayak 
model indeed, may have been in the mind of Mr. Alex. 
T. Loyd, of the Grand Calumet Heights, of Chicago, 
when he devised the racy lines of what we may call the 
Loyd boat. 




LOYD BOAT. 

This is a slender and graceful craft, about 18 feet in 
length. It is provided with out-riggers and is very 
speedy under oars, being really a better river runner 
than marsh boat. Under sail it is very fast and stiff, 
being provided with a keel which is detachable at will. 
At night the captain of the boat usually employs the 
keel as the ridge pole of his boat tent, simply reversing 
the position of the rods which fasten it in position. 
The owner of this boat has two or three airtiglit cases 
stowed fore and aft under the decking, and these would 
float the boat strongly if it were overturned, which, 
however, it has not yet been. This boat was born of a 



562 DUCK SHOOTING. 

necessity which implied long daily journeys over open 
water, which was often rough, and it has often been 
out when the whole fleet of marsh boats were storm- 
bound. 

The birch canoe is a creature of the past. The dug- 
out is the aboriginal boat of the South. A queer little 
craft is the St. Francis River (Missouri) dug-out, and 
this is the type, too, of the boats used on the great New 
Madrid duck marsh and in much of Arkansas. 



SASSAFRAS DUG-OUT. 

This boat is made of sassafras, and its size depends 
much upon the size of the tree handy to the builder. 
The boat is only 10 feet long and about 10 inches deep, 
and as wide as the tree was. It is perfectly flat on top, 
the ends being simply spoon-shaped. It has no seats. 
For leakiness and tipsiness it is hard to beat. 

A very highly finished and graceful dug-out is the 
little Mexican pirogue, which parts the waters before 
the paddle of the hunter of the far Southwest. Our illus- 
tration is taken from a little boat made by some Latin 
hand near Vera Cruz, Mexico. This pretty little dug- 



SKIFFS AND SNEAK BOATS. 563 

out — for such a thing- is possible — was used by Mr. 
George T. Farmer, of Chicago, as a marsh and river 
boat in duck shooting. It is 12 feet long and 14 inches 




MEXICAN CYPRESS PIROGUE. 



deep. The thin edge is strengthened by a light strip 

for a rail. This is an easy sort of boat to fall out of. 

Up on Wolf River, in Wisconsin, they have a hunt- 




WOLF RIVER CANOE. 



ing and trapping canoe, for paddling or pushing, which 
is an odd-looking but serviceable boat. It is 16 feet 
long and about 20 inches deep. It is decked about 



564 DUCK SHOOTING. 

3-| feet fore and aft of the cockpit, which is protected 
by a combing. 

This boat is cHnker-biiilt, but it has only three strips 




BOB STANLEY, FOX LAKE, ILL. 

on each side, the bottom being of one or two boards. 
It answers well the requirements of its locality. 

On the open waters of Fox Lake, a boat is needed 
which can on occasion stand a good deal of sea and pos- 




BOB sta^Stley. 

sibly some ice, and a good deal of wind. Mr. Bob 
Stanley, an old-timer on that lake, had this in mind, 
doubtless, when he constructed the wonderful and pon- 
derous inland ship, with which he sometimes plows 



SKIFFS AND SNEAK BOATS. 565 

the main while in quest of a pot shot at the wily can- 
vas-back of that country. It is greatly to the credit of 
this boat that it can carry sail. 

In the Illinois River country, and among the sturdy 
duck hunters who shoot early and late each year there, 
and therefore meet high waters and often fields or 
floes of tough, keen ice, we will find another type of 
boat evolved from such environment. This is the Illi- 




SENACHWINE IRON SKIFF. 

nois River or Lake Senachwine sheet-iron skiff, which 
all shooters of that region pronounce a boat well 
adapted to their purposes. This boat is well shown in 
the cut. It is about 16 feet long, stiff and beamy, and 
weighs from 75 or 100 pounds to 150. It is sometimes 
made with airtight compartments, but the natives scorn 
this model, which is too heavy. The iron skiff must 
be kept free from a breaking sea. It is valuable when 



566 



DUCK SHOOTING. 



it comes to an ice field, and is about as good a sled as it 
is a boat. 

The Hennepin duck boat, which is used in much the 
same waters as the above, is rather more of a fair- 
weather boat, but is a very good marsh boat for punt- 
ing, being built with a long and roomy cockpit. It can 
also be put under oars. This is a local boat, and is 
built by Mr. James Cunningham, the keeper of the 
Hennepin Club. 




HENNEPIN DUCK BOAT. 



A very popular and very good marsh boat is that 
commonly known among duck shooters as the "Moni- 
tor" model, or more commonly still, as the "Green Bay 
boat." This is a light, shallow craft, intended for no 
form of propulsion but the push-paddle or punting- 
pole. It is 15 feet in length, 34 inches in width, and 
only 7 inches deep; Its cockpit runs long fore and aft 
to give the pusher room. Its total weight is 75 or 80 



SKIFFS AND SNEAK BOATS. 



567 



pounds. This, or Mr. Douglas' worthy and not very 
dissimilar ''Waukegan boat," is the boat most used on 
the Kankakee marshes of Indiana. It is good for a 
long journey up the shallow streams and bayous, and 
in the covered marsh its well-fashioned bow parts the 




MONITOR MARSH BOAT. 

rushes and rides down the drift about as well as any 
boat could do. The Green Bay is no deep-water boat, 
and is not calculated for sail or sea. 

There is a pretty little red cedar boat made at De 



DE PERE RED CEDAR BOAT. 



Pere, Wis., which is also the place where the Green Bay 
boat is made. This latter boat weighs only 64 pounds, 
is 15 feet long, 32 inches beam, and 9 inches deep. The 
cockpit in this boat is not so long, but the craft is a 
very tidy one. 



568 DUCK SHOOTING. 

The Mississippi scull boat is a solid and sturdy craft. 
It is of the "pumpkin-seed" type and similar to a like 
boat used on the Atlantic coast. 

The boat sits low and has often more deck than 
shown in this cut. On this deck may be piled the sedge, 
brush or ice which is used as a blind. 




MISSISSIPPI SCULL BOAT. 

Somewhat similar in character is the Koshkonong 
(Wis.) flatboat, but every sink boat and sneak boat 
shooter will at once catch the idea. Twelve feet long 
and 8 feet across its wide "wings," this vehicle lies 
awash with most of its bulk beneath the surface. 
The shooter lies in the box, below the level of the water. 
This is a light cov^r or open-water boat, and is usually 
towed to the shooting point. 



SKIFFS AND SNEAK BOATS. 



569 



The "Koshonong Monitor" is a businesslike duck 
boat. Its deep canvas covering can be raised or lower- 
ed at will, and forms a protection alike against sea or 
wind. It is not a bad rowing boat and slips easily 
though the rushes and weeds. The rowlocks are ship- 
ped in two upright sections of gaspipe, which offer no 




KOSHKONONG FLATBOAT. 

entanglements to grass or reeds, and permit easy un- 
shipping of the oars. The deck of this boat is some- 
times made of canvas, though wood or tin may be used. 
The boat, with its load on board, sits low in the water 
and attracts little attention. There are two or three 




KOSHKONONG MONITOR. 



varieties of this boat made about Lake Koshkonong, 
but all conform practically to the type shown. They 
are heavy boats, usually sheathed with tin. They are 
suitable for use on a shallow inland lake. 

The Tolleston Club, whose grounds lie on the marshy 
Little Calumet, below Chicago, has a light, little, three 



570 



DUCK SHOOTING. 



or four board boat, on rather a simple, home-made 
model. It has no ribs or knees, and only one thwart, 
with a seat in the stern for a paddler, the latter seat 
coming pretty well up flush with the gunwale. This 
boat paddles easily on the river and punts well on the 
marsh. It is a good deal like just a plain boat, but it 
is a very well-made, cheap boat. 

The shooters at Grand Calumet Heights Club, on 
Lake Michigan, sometimes use an odd craft in shooting 




TOLLESTON BOAT. 

ducks on the open lake. On a low-lying platform, 
something like the Koshkonong flatboat, they build a 
deep cockpit, or roofless cabin, whose walls are about 
3 feet high. About the sides of this they arrange 
brush or material for a blind, and anchor the boat out 
in deep water, the decoys being arranged by means of 
another boat. This craft is called the "Merganser" 
boat. It will take a heavy sea, but is unwieldy and 
unmanageable. 

Over on the Canada line thev have two or three dis- 



SKIFFS AND SNEAK BOATS. 



571 



tinct types of boat. The Point Mouille boat is a double- 
ender, decked, made of three boards, sides and bottom, 
built light and shallow, and a bird of a boat on the 
marsh. The open-water shooting of the St. Clair Flat? 
is done from a very light and shallow sneak, much like 
a condensed and etherealized Koshkonong flatboat. 
This boat is intended to lie fairly awash in the water, 
and the shooter lies in it on his back. They call this a 
"lying-out boat." 




NORTH CANOE. 



The North canoe closely resembles the ordinary birch 
bark, but is said to be even more easily propelled. It 
is used on some of the northern waters in duck shooting 
as well as in fishing and travelling. Although requir- 
ing a certain amount of practice in its use, it is easily 
handled and a useful boat. 

The boats made for the use of the duck shooter are 
many. They are constructed of cedar, canvas, metal, 
and other material, and all have their good points and 
may be used to advantage in certain localities. Over 
a country as wide as the United States it is impossible 
to recommend any one type of boat for all waters. 



572 DUCK SHOOTING. 



OTHER CRAFT. 

As a rule, on inland waters, the purpose of the gun- 
ner's boat is merely to transport him and his parapher- 
nalia from place to place. Along the seacoast, the 
case is somewhat different, since it may often be nec- 
essary to travel considerable distances in the vessel, 
when speed and staunchness are of most importance. 

Whatever type of boat the gunner uses, he must not 
forget that it must be made as inconspicuous as pos- 
sible, and, therefore, he will see that it is painted as 
nearly as may be the color of its surroundings. For 
the broad and shallow bays of the South, it should be 
the color of the mud flats; in other localities, the color 
of dead grass. For winter shooting, white; and so on 
through the range of the natural colors. 

The gunner who visits a special locality year after 
year, will be likely to provide himself with as good a 
boat as possible for the particular shooting that he is 
to engage in, and will fit it with everything necessary 
to his comfort. Just what these dififerent things are, 
he will know better than any one else. 



ICE WORK. 

In many parts of the country, wdiere duck shooting 
is carried on ov^r wide waters, which from time to 
time are frozen, and over which it is therefore more 



ICE WORK. 5 73 

or less difficult to get about, a light freeze is not very 
troublesome. The gunner, standing in the stern of 
the skiff, throws the boat's nose out of the water, and 
pushes her up on the ice, which before long breaks, 
under her weight, and he then pushes her forward 
again. All very thin ice can be shoved through, but it 
is necessary where much work is done in the ice to have 
the boat sheathed with light copper from her nose, on 
both sides, to beyond the swell. If this is not done, 
the ice will cut the sides and leave them ragged with 
splinters, which makes the boat hard to row or sail. 
Sometimes, however, the ice may become so thick that 
the boat can neither be shoved through nor over it, 
and when the bow is pushed up onto the ice, it hangs 
there, or, at most, merely bends down the ice without 
breaking through. On the other hand, over warm 
springs, and in places where the current moves a little, 
the ice may be so thin that it will not support a man's 
w^eight. It is sometimes recommended that iron shoes 
be fastened to the bottom of the boat, that it may be 
shoved over the ice by the gunner, who walks behind 
holding to the stern. In case he comes to an air-hole, 
or a weak spot, he can then draw himself aboard the 
skiff. This does not appear to be a profitable way of 
arranging for ice work. The ordinary gunning skiff, 
with its wide beam, made to hold a great stand of de- 
coys, two or three men, and possibly some goose coops 
in forward, is too large to be used on the ice. 

Much better than this is to have a very small and 
light skiff for ice work, and fitted to the bottom of the 



574 DUCK SHOOTING. 

skiff, but removable at pleasure, a sled, with runners 
on each side, on which the skiff can be set. Then, by 
means of a light, long pole, shod with a small boat- 
hook, the gunner can rapidly shove himself over the 
ice in all directions; can visit air-holes, and can have 
the comfort of being on board his boat the whole time. 
Short uprights on the sides of the sled may fit against 
two narrow cleats tacked on either side of the skiff; 
or slight protuberances on the runners of the sled may 
fit into slight hollows in the bottom of the skiff, the 
weight of the boat and its load always keeping the 
skiff firm on the sled. Or, on the same light skiff, may 
be tacked shoes running nearly the whole length of the 
bottom on either side and provided with runners of 
half-round steel. 

With an arrangement of this kind, we have known 
men to cross ten or twelve miles of dangerous broad- 
waters with little exertion, and with absolutely 
no danger, where days of the hardest kind of work 
would not have brought a gunning skiff across, and 
where the men would have been obliged constantly to 
leave the boat, and expose themselves at least to the 
danger of getting wet, if not of drowning. 

While these narrow and light skiffs will not carry 
a great load, they are large enough to hold a couple of 
men, their guns and ammunition, and a few decoys. 
They should be used only in ice work, however, as they 
are so frail and cranky that they would not live in 
rough waters. On some of the southern broad-waters, 
in Maryland, Virginia and North and South Carolina. 



ICE WORK. 575 

freezes occur every year, which are often hard enough 
to make ice in which a common gunning skiff cannot 
be used; and this often puts an end to the gunning of 
many men who are not prepared for ice work, and at 
the very time when the fowl are Hkely to be most 
abundant, and most easily obtained by those prepared 
to go out for them. 




THE DECREASE OF WILDFOWL. 



The constant decrease of the number of our wild- 
fowl is a subject of frequent complaint by gunners 
whose memory goes back twenty-five or thirty years. 
They compare the scarcity of to-day with the abundance 
of old times, and continually inquire why it is that the 
birds are growing yearly less and less in number. 

Various explanations of the change are given. The 
blame is laid on the market-shooter, on the supposed 
destruction of birds and eggs on the northern breeding 
grounds, and on supposed changes in the lines of flight 
by the migratory birds, but most gunners are unwilling 
to accept the logic of events and to acknowledge that 
the principal cause of the lessened number of the fowl 
lies with the gunners themselves, and is an inevitable 
accompaniment of civilization, not to be changed ex- 
cept by radical measures. Many of these men, no 
doubt, merely repeat what they have heard other people 
say, but there are others who advance these remote 
causes through pure selfishness, realizing that if they 
admit the enormous destruction by gunners they must 
logically advocate the abridgment of the shooting sea- 
son, which means the abolition of spring shooting. 

One of the most grotesquely fantastic explanations 
of the scarcity of wildfowl was put forth several years 
ago in the newspapers, and was soon afterward fathered 
by a society bearing the impressive name, National 

576 



THE DECREASE OF WILDFOWL. 577 

Game, Fish and Bird Protective Association. Tliis 
story told of an enormous destruction of wildfowl 
eggs in the Northwest for commercial purposes; mil- 
lions, shiploads and trainloads of such eggs, it was 
gravely related, being annually gathered in Alaska and 
British America, and shipped thence to points in the 
East, where they were manufactured into egg albumen 
cake. The story took with the newspapers, and those 
who had fathered it were eager to be interviewed and to 
tell what they said they knew about it. They even in- 
duced a Senator — the Hon. John H.Mitchell, of Oregon 
— to make a speech in the Senate on Alaskan egg de- 
struction, and to ask for an appropriation of $5,000 for 
the purpose of sending some one to Alaska to find out 
more about it. Incidentally, another Senator, the Hon. 
H. Cabot Lodge, of Massachusetts, introduced and 
pushed through Congress a bill forbidding the importa- 
tion of the eggs of wild birds, with the result that now 
if any man wants to import from England the eggs of 
pheasants, partridges, black game or capercailzie for 
hatching out birds to stock his land, he finds that the 
law forbids him to do so. 

In 1895, Forest and Stream set on foot an investiga- 
tion to learn what truth there was in the story; what 
was the basis, if any, for the alarming statistics quoted ; 
whether an abuse that required checking actually ex- 
isted. The climax was reached when the president of 
the Protective Association already named gave out to 
a Chicago newspaper a quotation from the report of a 
certain Mr. Storey, who at that time was the local 



578 DUCK SHOOTING. 

secretary of the association for Oregon. Among other 
things, Mr. Storey said : "Another work that has been 
pushed by your secretary for this State, and in which I 
am now prepared to ask your hearty cooperation, is the 
protection from egg-hunters of our wildfowl breeding 
grounds in Alaska. A careful investigation shows that 
millions of eggs are gathered and shipped from these 
grounds annually, and countless numbers of partly ma- 
tured eggs destroyed. I have furnished our United 
States Senator, the Hon. Jno. H. Mitchell, with the 
proper information relating to the above facts, and if 
the State secretaries of this association will bring the 
matter before their several Senators at Washington, 
asking them to cooperate with Senator Mitchell, I am 
sure the effect will be for the best." 

It was obvious that if anything approaching the 
quantity of eggs mentioned were shipped each season 
from railroad points on the North Pacific coast, some 
one would know about it. There would be a great 
coastwise traffic in these eggs; trains of merchandise 
are not loaded up at night and shipped off secretly to 
unknown consignees, nor are shiploads of eggs re- 
ceived from foreign countries without entry at the Cus- 
tom House. A n^an does not start from the shores of 
the Arctic seas with an egg in his pocket, come down 
a thousand miles or so to the border line, smuggle the 
egg across, and then go back for another. Yet a care- 
ful inquiry among the persons who professed to know 
most about this subject, and who were most eager to 
be quoted en it, elicited no information whatever. 



Jl - 







p; 







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pi' 



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2; :S 



Q r = 



THE DECREASE OE WILDFOWL. 579 

Mr. Storey was asked for facts bearing on the mat- 
ter, but never responded. No one could be found who 
had knowledge of any such trade. Nothing definite 
was written about the matter, and no particle of evi- 
dence was ever brought forward to show that such 
trade existed. No names were given of those who 
gathered the eggs or shipped them, nor of the con- 
signees to whom they went, nor of the vessels by which 
they arrived, nor of the people who received the eggs 
and manufactured them. There was never a word of 
detail, not a scintilla of evidence — just a series of gen- 
eralities about millions and carloads of duck eggs, set 
in a glittering frame painted over with pictures of the 
far-stretching tundra and the on-moving clouds of 
ducks, geese, swans and auks. 

In the Forest and Stream's investigation, inquiry 
was made first of the transportation lines; second, at 
the custom houses, and third, of those persons con- 
cerned with the manufacture of commercial albumen, 
where these carloads and shiploads of millions of eggs 
were supposed to be consumed. 

It was found that the transcontinental railway lines, 
by which of necessity the wildfowl eggs must have 
reached the East, had never transported any. Inquiry 
at the different custom ports showed that wildfowl eggs 
had never been imported through any of the custom 
houses along our northern or northwestern border; 
and. finally, the largest manufacturers of albumen in 
this country stated that practically all the albumen 
product used in this country was obtained in Russia, 



cSo DUCK SHOOTING. 

Germany and France, wliere liens' eggs are very cheap. 
Albumen is used chiefly for food purposes, most of it 
in the making of cakes and candies, and one pound, 
worth from 48 to 50 cents, represents a product of 150 
eggs, or about 4 cents a dozen. At the time when this 
story was going the rounds, photography was extreme- 
ly popular, and almost every one carried a camera. The 
men who occupied themselves in retailing the story 
about Alaska duck eggs declared that the most of the 
albumen from these eggs was used in the manufacture 
of sensitized paper. Yet a little inquiry showed that at 
that time comparatively little albumen was used in pho- 
tography, since gelatine and other materials had even 
then almost entirely taken its place. 

This, then, was the conclusion of the whole matter : 
Those who professed to have information on the sub- 
ject were unable to substantiate the stories which they 
told ; the transportation companies have carried no 
such eggs ; none have ever been received at the ports of 
entry; the albumen trade knows nothing whatever 
about them, and, in view of the total lack of evidence 
to support the story, there is no doubt that it is a pure 
invention. 

The situation is very well summed up by Mr. Wm. 
\V. Castle, of Boston, Mass., who, in a letter in Forest 
and Stream, said : "My opinion is that more eggs are 
destroyed in the Mississippi Valley by the spring shoot- 
ers — a thousand, or even ten thousand, to one — than it 
would be possible to destroy in any collection that could 
be carried out, even if eggs were worth $1 a dozen, at 



THE DECREASE OF WILDFOWL. 58 1 

the breeding grounds. Wildfowl, while gregarious in 
migration, are by no means so in breeding. * * * 
I have seen miles of country (barren) in the North- 
west that to a superficial observer might seem to be a 
vast breeding ground, but would really hold but few^ 
birds in comparison to its apparent capabilities, and 
even those which were to be seen flying about were by 
no means all breeders. 

"With sea fow^l it might be different, but my experi- 
ence on the Pacific has been that, with few exceptions, 
there are no such breeding grounds accessible to any 
one commercially disposed as there have been on the 
Gulf of St. Lawrence and Labrador coast. I thought 
at the time that the matter of commercial tgg destruc- 
tion w'as opened up, that it was simply a weak invention 
of those who are butchering spring birds to throw dust 
and endeavor to blind people as to the real cause of de- 
crease, viz., spring shooting." 

Another correspondent of Forest and Stream, writ- 
ing from St. Louis, Mo., made some statements with 
regard to the destruction of birds in the swamps of 
Missouri and Arkansas which are worth quoting. He 
said : "I have read with much interest your article 
pertaining to the gathering of wild duck eggs for com- 
mercial purposes. The theory, whenever mentioned, 
never fails to produce audible smiles. * * * The 
secret of decimated ranks lies more with those fortu- 
nate enough to get w^here ducks are, and with the mar- 
ket-shooter in particular, who is on the ground all the 
time. No; wild ducks are not all dead yet, not if we 



582 DUCK SHOOTING. 

may judge from the vast multitudes to be seen in the 
swamps of the sunk land of Missouri and Arkansas. 

"In October of '94 a party of four from this city, 
and four from Cincinnati, shot over one thousand 
ducks in one week, and, from the hordes still seen, it 
did not look as if any were missing. To the average 
amateur, the piles of ducks would have looked like 
three times the quantity, as nine-tenths of them were 
choice mallards. 

"Nor were these all the ducks shot in this quiet and 
celebrated spot that week. Five market-hunters were 
in there all the time, and in this particular week aver- 
aged from 80 to 140 ducks per day each. 

"A netter was also at work, who made a shipment of 
tw^enty barrels of mallards at one time. Again, to the 
average amateur, or even to the semi-professional, this 
may sound fishy. If the receipts of the steamboat which 
brought the ducks to this market will be proof, they 
can be produced. The netter made no more shipments, 
for the natives forced him out of the country with Win- 
chesters. * * *" 



CAUSES. 

Two prime causes exist for the diminution of wild- 
fowl. These are over-shooting, and the settling up of 
the country. 

The abuses under the head of over-shooting which 
ought to be corrected are : 



CAUSES. 583 

(a) Shooting seasons far too long; in some States 
lasting from September to May, or for eight months of 
the year. The ducks are shot from the time they arrive 
from the North in the fall until they leave for the 
North in the spring. 

(b) Methods that are too destructive, as batteries, 
night shooting, bush blinds, sailing. 

(f) Big bags by sportsmen who shoot for recrea- 
tion. 

{d) Shooting for market. Certain men devote all 
their time while the fowl are with us to shooting them 
for sale to game dealers. Often they kill by methods 
that are illegal. 

In consequence of the diminution of the number of 
our birds, other causes which were formerly trivial 
have assumed a greater relative importance. Two of 
these are the destruction of eggs and fowl, young and 
old, on their breeding ground, by natives, and poison- 
ing by lead taken in with the food. The last, though 
odd and unexpected, is not sufficiently destructive to 
require serious consideration. 

Up to the year i860, gunning was practiced by com- 
paratively few individuals in this country, and they 
were not enough to make any considerable impression 
on the hordes of wildfowl that had always thronged 
our lakes, streams and bays. During the five years of 
the Civil War, all Southern ducking-grounds, and most 
of those in the North, had almost complete rest, and 
the number of fowl killed was inconsiderable. They 
had time during these years of almost no shooting to 



5^4 DUCK SHOOTING. 

re-estal)lish themselves, and to fill the gap in their ranks 
that had heen made in earlier years. Witnesses who 
\-isited southern ducking-grounds in 1865 tell of the 
countless number of fowl then found there, and of their 
tameness. They say, too, that then there were no gun- 
ners, and that the only birds killed were a few shot by 
the residents for their own consumption. 

At this time the West was practically unknown, and, 
of course, unsettled. Beyond the Missouri River there 
were no white inhabitants. Over the vast extent of 
territory between the Mississippi and the Rocky Moun- 
tains the fowl bred imdisturbed, and in their migra- 
tions passed to and fro over a territory where they 
were not molested. If there was an occasional army 
post in that wild region, its presence there had no 
effect on the ducks and geese, for the shotgun was un- 
known, and the man who desired sport or food took 
his rifle and hunted four-footed game. 

But gradually a change came. Settlements increased 
along the lines of travel ; railroads were built into new 
territory; ranchers began to take up land in regions 
away from the railway, and each newcomer made the 
country less possible for the wild creatures that had 
hitherto inhabited it or passed through it. Concur- 
rently with all this, came the greatly increased interest 
in shooting, by which the number of the gunners was 
many times multiplied. As their numbers increased, 
they soon shot out the old places to which the fowl had 
always resorted,' and were forced to search out new- 
localities of game plenty. Let us see with what result. 



CAUSES. 585 

In 1880, travelers over the Union, Pacific Railroad 
learned that during the migration geese resorted in 
vast flocks to the Platte River, and gunners began 
to go in great numbers to Nebraska for the goose- 
shooting. They brought back marvelous tales of the 
abundance of the fowl, and soon the gunners gathered 
on the sand bars of the Platte in such numbers as, after 
a time, to almost line the river. In 1884, Mr. Burr 
Polk, a contributor to Forest and Stream, wrote : "The 
gunners have so increased in the last three years that 
the weary goose, coming down from the North, or in 
from the fields, to rest and slake its thirst, can hardly 
find a place out of the range of some one's gun. Blinds 
line the bars in the stream for one hundred miles so 
thickly as to preclude all chance of a fair bag. A flock 
of geese coming into the river can rarely strike it at 
any point without a volley being fired at it, and as the 
terror-stricken fowl move on up stream, hunting a 
place of safety, their progress can be marked by the 
booming of the guns as they pass the gauntlet of blinds 
along their course. 

"We first tried the river at Newark, but after slight 
scores, and having our blinds robbed one night of 
nearly all of our decoys and game, we pulled up and 
drove twenty miles down the river along the bank in 
quest of some unoccupied spot. But none was to be 
found. Hunters were quartered at farm-houses or 
camping in tents on both sides of the river at short in- 
tervals. As we went down we met parties going up, 
in the hope that had actuated us. The result of all this 



586 DUCK SHOOTING. 

is to break up the habit of the geese of loiterhig on the 
Platte in their flight southward, and to hurry them on 
their journey where they can at least rest one day in 
peace. The chances are that, if this wholesale hunting 
of them is continued for another year or two, they will 
seek other lines in their migrations, and that we will 
never again see geese on the Platte in great numbers. 
At the station, where we took the train coming home, 
we met a couple of gentlemen who had been in the 
habit of going out on the Platte annually after geese. 
This year they had occupied blinds just above us. They 
told us that one day neither of them got a shot." 

In 1885, the same correspondent told a similar story. 
He said that the geese had not come as usual to the 
Platte River, nor had they appeared much about the 
lakes and ponds, nor in the corn fields of the farmers, 
as had been their habit in former years ; nor, indeed, 
had many been seen in flight going southward over 
this region. He then adds, naively : 

"No one seems to be able to account for this sudden 
diminution of wild geese along the Platte. It never 
occurred to me that it would happen during my life- 
time. There are various theories regarding it. One 
is, that they have taken a different line in their migra- 
tion southward ; another, that, as the country has set- 
tled up further northward, and grain has been grown 
there, they stop along the lakes in that region, and re- 
main because they are not disturbed ; another, that they 
did come down here, but as every farmer had a gun, to 
pop away at them in the fields where they went to feed. 



CAUSES. 587 

and the bars in the river were covered with gunners, 
they hurried southward to seek peace and rest; and 
still another, that, through the despoiling of their eggs 
in their nesting-grounds, and the spring and fall killing 
of the fowl by the myriads of hunters, their ranks had 
become so depleted they could no longer make the big 
display of former years. I do not know, I am sure. 

"Pretty much the same may be said with reference 
to ducks. Indeed, the falling off in their case has been 
greater than that of the geese. I have not heard of a 
creditable bag, even by the most successful hunters. If 
they have come this way in any considerable numbers, 
they have done it so slyly and quietly that none of us 
has been aware of their presence. We people of this 
part of Nebraska have begun to realize that, like our 
more eastern friends, if we want to do much success- 
ful work among the ducks, we will have to seek other 
regions for the sport. How quickly do the settlement 
of a country, and the modern gun, cause the game to 
disappear!" 

The writer of these paragraphs had evidently forgot- 
ten in 1885 that one year earlier he had himself given 
ample reasons for the disappearance of the geese, and, 
in fact, had predicted that disappearance. Indeed, it 
was only ten years before the date of his earlier letter 
that the buffalo along the Platte had been destroyed in 
precisely the same manner that the geese were. Half 
a dozen years earlier than 1874, people had talked con- 
stantly of the millions of buffalo, of the impossibility 
of ever exterminating them, and of how they would 



588 DUCK SHOOTING. 

continue to roam the plains for many, many years; 
but, as a matter of fact, it took only three or four years 
to destroy these millions in this region. Of course, 
after a time, migratory wildfowl learn to avoid regions 
where they are continually persecuted, and, no doubt, 
this has been the case with the geese and the ducks 
which formerly spent weeks along the Platte River, 
remaining until driven South by the freezing up of the 
waters. 

By this time the fowl had become so scarce in many 
parts of the Middle West that gunners almost gave up 
looking for them, and turned their thoughts to more 
distant regions, the newly-settled wheat lands of North 
Dakota, for example; where, had it not been for the 
wisdom of that State in limiting the number of birds 
to be killed by one man in a day, the story of the Platte 
River might have been told over again. 

This is one example of the effect on fowl shooting 
of the settling up of the country, and the bringing dis- 
tant localities within the reach of the gunner. Another 
and still more potent cause of decrease, is the advance 
of the settlements, which makes it impossible for the 
birds to build their nests and hatch their young where 
they did formerly. 

The story of many Atlantic coast shooting grounds 
that were formerly famous is similar to that of the 
Platte River. Yet, on these shooting grounds, the de- 
struction has not been so complete, since the far greater 
extent of water makes it impossible for gunners to oc- 
cupy the feeding grounds of the birds, as they did 



SPRING SHOOTING. 589 

along- the Platte. Nevertheless, the use of batteries, or 
sink-boats, on the feeding grounds, the employment of 
big guns at night, and night shooting generally, with 
or without lights, have had a tendency to break up the 
birds on Chesapeake Bay and on the Susquehanna 
Flats, and to drive them to other grounds. 



SPRING SHOOTING. 

Sportsmen, generally, are agreed that most of our 
upland game should be protected during the early 
months of the year, when they are preparing to mate 
and to build their nests. It is commonly averred by 
the advocates of spring shooting, that, as the wildfowl 
and the snipe are migratory birds, which do not nest 
with us, there is no reason why they should not be shot 
in the spring, during their passage from South to 
North. Such reasoning is based on false premises. 

The assumption that the migratory wildfowl do not 
breed with us is false. They do not now breed com- 
monly, because they are not allowed to do so, and those 
which might remain with us and rear their young with- 
in our borders, are destroyed before they have an op- 
portunity to prepare their nests and lay their eggs. In 
years gone by, however, the English snipe, and many 
species of our waterfowl, commonly bred in all the 
northern tier of States, and did so in great numbers. 
Even to-day, in States where spring shooting is for- 
bidden, thev breed to a limited extent, and would do so 



590 DUCK SHOOTING. 

generally if they were free from disturbance by man. 
Certain species do so to-day in New England and New 
York, and require only protection in spring to do so 
on a much larger scale. 

As it is, they are shot over almost the whole 
United States, and part of Canada, at a time when they 
are preparing to nest, when they are not fit for food, 
and when their destruction has a more immediate bear- 
ing than at any other time on the supply of fowl for the 
coming winter. 

Spring shooting ought to be forbidden by public 
sentiment and law alike, on the ground that it is too 
destructive to our waterfowl. It ought to be forbidden 
for the same reason that catching trout out of brooks 
and rivers with seines is forbidden — because it destroys 
so many of the fowl that the general supply suffers too 
great depletion. 

One of the chief arguments used by those who ad- 
vocate spring shooting, and especially by persons living 
in the Mississippi Valley, is, that if the spring shooting 
is abolished they will get no duck shooting through the 
year. These persons claim that in their locality there is 
no fall duck shooting ; that the flyway of the birds on 
tlieir southern migration does not touch them. In 
spring, how^ever, they say that the birds come to them 
in good numbers, but that the flight is short, although 
while it lasts the shooting is excellent. Such an argu- 
ment is purely selfish, and might, with equal force, be 
advanced in favor of netting trout, night shooting, or 
any other improvident practice. 



SPRING SHOOTING. 59 1 

If the claims of such men are founded on fact, their 
case is certainly a hard one, but, manifestly, laws limit- 
ing the shooting of fowl should not be applied to any 
one section, but should be general. 

Within the recollection of men who are not yet old, 
more than one species of bird and mammal have become 
extinct in America, while over large sections of the 
country many species have been practically extermi- 
nated. If gunners generally could be induced to take 
a broad view of these matters, and to consider the gen- 
eral good, rather than their own selfish advantage, the 
cause of game protection would be greatly helped, and 
the gunners themselves, after a few years, would be 
greatly benefited. It is to be hoped that before long 
most of the States will have followed the worthy ex- 
ample set them by a small number of those in the 
Northwest, and will enact laws leading to the better 
protection of our fowl. 

Years ago, the suggestion that spring shooting 
should be abolished was commonly laughed at, but 
slowly a belief in the necessity of limiting the shooting 
has grown, until now there are a few States which pro- 
hibit spring shooting altogether, and a few others 
which prohibit it in a more or less half-hearted way. 
In Vermont the season for shooting wild ducks ends 
January ist, and in New Hampshire, February ist. Of 
course, long before these dates, all the ducks and geese 
have gone South, not to return until the ice breaks up 
in the spring. In Minnesota, the season for wildfowl 
closes January ist, and in Idaho, March ist, in both 



592 DUCK SHOOTING. 

cases, of course, before the birds have begun to return 
from the South. It is seen that, therefore, in two of 
our newest States, the game protective idea is far more 
advanced than in most of the older States. 

In Michigan the open season closes for the most of 
the State, May ist, but for the Upper Peninsula, Janu- 
ary 15th. In Wisconsin the wildfowl season closes 
January ist, except as to geese, for which it is open to 
May ist; and the same dates apply in North Dakota. 
Newfoundland and Ontario have the duck season close 
in the middle of winter, December 15th and January 
1 2th, but the season is open for geese until May ist. 

Most of the other States have the shooting season 
for wildfowl close during April or May, although in 
California, North Carolina, British Columbia, and 
Nova Scotia the close time begins in IMarch. 

The experiment of having certain days during each 
week when shooting is not permitted has been tried in 
some Southern States, with great advantage to the 
gunning and to the birds ; and even the market-gun- 
ners, who at first were bitterly opposed to any such law, 
now acknowledge that it has worked for their benefit, 
and that on the shooting days they get better gunning 
than they used to when each day of the week was open 
to them. It is especially noticeable that the gunning 
on Monday — after the birds have had two days of rest 
— is usually better than on any other day of the week. 



CONTRACTION OF FEEDING GROUNDS. 593 



CONTRACTION OF FEEDING GROUNDS.. 

Certain natural conditions have, at various times 
within the past few years, tended to injure the shooting 
of the Chesapeake Bay region. On a number of occa- 
sions great floods have swept down alluvium and drift 
stuff from the rivers, covering large portions of the 
feeding grounds, and thus destroyed the food. At other 
times, unusual cold has frozen the waters over the shal- 
lower flats, quite to the bottom, killing or tearing up 
by the roots the grass on which the fowl feed. Of 
course, such wholesale destruction of the food prevents 
the fowl from visiting the grounds until the grass has 
re-established itself once more, and this is a very slow 
process. 

It is reported, also, and probably with truth, that 
many of the flats which formerly were excellent feed- 
ing grounds for the canvas-back and other fowl, are 
constantly filling up, and becoming too shoal for cer- 
tain kinds of duck food to grow. This, if true, must in 
time very greatly reduce the area of the feeding 
grounds, and the result of this will be not to concen- 
trate the birds on the diminished area, but to drive them 
to other localities. 

In the Chesapeake Bay, as also in certain bays on 
Long Island, there has been in the past great complaint 
that ducks were caught in nets set over their feeding 
grounds. The nets are placed close to the bottom, 



594 DUCK SHOOTING. 

ostensibly to catch fish, and the ducks, diving, become 
entangled in their meshes, and drown. Laws exist in 
certain States forbidding the setting of nets for the 
purpose of catching ducks, but as no method has as yet 
been discovered for exposing what goes on in a man's 
brain, it has never been possible to prove that any indi- 
vidual set his nets for the purpose of catching ducks, 
and no convictions under this law have ever been had. 
Of late years there has been little or no complaint of 
this practice. 



SIZE OF BAGS. 

The man who shoots merely as a matter of recrea- 
tion usually has great — and sometimes just — com- 
plaint to make of the market-shooter. Many men de- 
clare that if there were no shooting for the market, 
game would be as plenty as ever. The average gunner 
looks with disfavor on the man who turns the fruits of 
his shooting into money, and attributes the diminished 
number of our fowl very largely to the slaughter which 
he causes. 

As a matter of fact, it is hard to see where the mar- 
ket-shooter is any more to blame for the destruction 
of birds than is he who shoots merely for recreation. 
The market-shooter, to be sure, is a professional, in 
the sense that he turns his skill in a branch of sport 
into money. But in this there is nothing necessarily 
disgraceful, and we have known more than one mar- 



SIZE OF BAGS. 595 

ket-shooter who, to our mind, was a far truer sports- 
man than many of that class who contemn him. The 
harn.i wrought by the market gunner is due to the fact 
that he works at gunning day after day through the 
shooting season, and so, individuaUy, kills a vast num- 
ber of birds. The ravages of the market hunter wiil 
cease when laws shall be put in force properly regu- 
lating the sale of game. 

Within the past few years the question of the size of 
catch of fish or bags of game has been taken hold of 
by the legislature of various States, and laws have been 
passed limiting the quantity of fish, birds or mammals 
that one person can kill in one day. Some States have 
gone further than this, and have placed a limit not only 
on what shall be taken in a day, but also in a season. 
Such legislation has the support of public opinion, and 
so, enforced by the game wardens, it cannot fail to 
do great good. Neither the market-shooter nor the 
non-professional gunner has sufficient self-control to 
stop shooting when he has killed a fair bag of birds. 
Instead of this, he will continue to shoot as long as the 
fowl fly, and in this respect the two classes are equally 
blameworthy. Every man remembers the many days 
which were almost blanks, and those other days on 
which but few birds were killed; it is but human — 
when the occasional good days come — that the gunner 
should wish to make the most of his opportunities, and 
should try to average up the bad days. Bags of sixty, 
eighty, and sometimes even a hundred birds are not 
uncommon. Yet, under the conditions which exist in 



59^ DUCK SHOOTING. 

America to-day. no man ought to wish to kill birds in 
such a wholesale way. 

In the years between 1870 and 1875 it was not un- 
common for fifteen thousand ducks to be killed in a sin- 
gle day on the Chesapeake Bay. At the present day 
one-fifth of this number would be a very large score. 

It is greatly to be desired that all States may enact 
laws something like those of North Dakota, where the 
number of birds that may be killed in a day is limited 
to twenty-five. If such a law could be put into opera- 
tion, and the shooting season could be shortened, so 
that it would last for three or four months, instead of 
eight, the effect on our wildfowl would soon be seen. 



NATURAL ENEMIES. 

In the old times, when wildfowl were so enormously 
abundant over most of the country, it seemed as if their 
numbers could never be greatly reduced. At that 
period, those interested in the subject imagined that 
the only important dangers to which the birds were 
exposed were such wholesale methods of destruction 
as over-shooting and netting. Now, however, since 
the birds have grown fewer, since hundreds use the 
shotgun where ten did formerly, when the western 
and a part of the northern breeding grounds have 
been turned into farms and summer resorts, and when, 
notwithstanding all this, the shooting continues over 



NATURAL ENEMIES. 597 

eight months of the year, it is necessary to consider 
certain minor causes of destruction which formerly 
were not worth thinking of. 

The fable that wildfowl eggs were gathered for com- 
mercial purposes undoubtedly had its origin in the fact 
that Indians collect the eggs for food. From time im- 
memorial the Indians and Eskimos who dwell in the 
country where the ducks breed have collected for food 
quantities of their eggs, and during the moulting sea- 
son great numbers of young and of adult birds. They 
do so still; but, as the population of the North is very 
sparse, they cannot destroy any considerable numbers. 
Beside this, it may be said that in many places the In- 
dians and the Eskimos are disappearing more rapidly 
than the ducks. These savage peoples are to be counted 
as the natural enemies to the wildfowl, and the destruc- 
tion which they cause is, perhaps, no greater than that 
caused by other natural enemies — the wild animals and 
the rapacious birds which feed on the fowl or their eggs 
when they can. In comparison w4th the other causes 
already enumerated, the destruction caused by the na- 
tives is absolutely inconsiderable. The true reason for 
the decrease of the birds is the spread of civilization 
over the continent, which means their destruction by 
civilized man ; and every attempt to cover up this truth 
and to lay blame elsewhere is a real injury to the cause 
of game protection. 



598 DUCK SHOOTING. 



LEAD POISONING. 



Another quite unexpected clanger to wildfowl, which 
was discovered only in 1894, having been then an- 
nounced in Forest and Stream, is the self-poisoning of 
ducks, by means of lead taken into the stomach in the 
form of shot. 

In Texas, at Galveston, at Stephenson Lake, and on 
Lake Surprise, twenty-five miles northeast of Galves- 
ton, as well as at points in Currituck Sound, on the 
North Carolina coast, there are frequently found ducks, 
geese and swans, dead, or sick and unable to fly. On 
examination they prove to be unmarked by shot, and 
often appear externally in good condition. An in- 
vestigation, however, shows that the gizzard contains, 
with the sand and gravel always to be found there, 
particles of lead — shot or its remains — picked up 
by the bird in feeding. The condition of some of these 
particles shows that they have recently been taken into 
the gizzard, for they have lost nothing in size or sur- 
face. Others have evidently been sul)jected for some 
time to the grinding process, and have lost much of 
their weight. It is said that in Texas sometimes such 
gizzards contain, beside particles of lead, old percus- 
sion caps. 

The matter was first brought to my personal atten- 
tion during the \Vinter of 1893-4. and shortly after I 
wrote about it. substantiallv as follows : 



LEAD POISONING. 599 

During a recent visit to Currituck Sound, I heard 
much of a disease to which wildfowl there are subject, 
and which is locally known as "croup." This sickness 
seems to be common to ducks, geese and swans, and I 
saw a number of the affected birds. The local gun- 
ners believe it to be a disease of the respiratory organs ; 
and, on capturing a sick bird, rub its throat, under the 
impression that something is choking the fowl. Of 
course, the sick ones are not under observation during 
the early stages of the disease, but only after they be- 
come so weak as to be easily captured; the symptoms 
are a rattling in the throat, as if there were difficulty in 
breathing, and an occasional dribbling of a few drops 
of yellowish fluid from the bill, which is held open 
much of the time. In the geese, the voice is changed, 
being less resonant than in health. A "croupy" goose, 
captured near the point of Narrows Island, January 
14th, seemed in good condition, sleek and quite strong. 
It swam vigorously, but did not attempt to fly, and 
when caught, struggled with a good deal of force. As it 
was being put in the boat, its head and neck hanging 
down, it disgorged two or three tablespoonfuls of a 
yellowish fluid, and died. A swan caught on Brant 
Island, a day or two earlier, was brought in alive and 
put in the goose pen, where it lived for a short time, but 
was found dead one morning. At times this bird seemed 
to feel pretty well, dabbling in the water and dressing 
its plumage, but much of the time it stood or sat with 
its bill open, breathing hard, and with the yellowish 
fluid dropping from its beak. 



6oo DUCK SHOOTING. 

A dissection of the two birds mentioned revealed 
the disease from which the fowl suffers and its cause. 

All the organs were found in a healthy condition 
until the gizzard was reached. In the case of the goose, 
the crop and upper gizzard were filled with fresh 
grass, on which the processes of digestion had not be- 
gun. The posterior part of the gizzard contained per- 
haps two ounces of fine sand, mingled with coarser 
gravel. Distributed through this sand was a small 
quantity — perhaps one-quarter of an ounce — of par- 
ticles of lead, evidently shot. Some of these particles 
were large and round, others were flattened, others 
still were no larger than No. lo or No. 12 shot, and 
were not round, but oval or bean-shaped. The sur- 
faces of all were dull, and, on close examination, were 
seen to be finely pitted by attrition against the harder 
sand and gravel which grinds up the bird's food. The 
gristly lining of the gizzard of this goose was greenish 
in color, and in character entirely dififerent from the 
same membrane in a healthy bird. Its inner membrane 
was soft and decayed, or corroded, easily to be pulled 
to pieces or rubbed off with the finger, and in some 
places had degenerated into a soft, jelly-like mass of 
yellowish color. The thicker tough lining of the giz- 
zard was also corroded and could be picked away in 
small pieces, while in a healthy bird it would have 
stripped away in a single piece from the white mem- 
brane upon which it lies. This, white membrane 
showed here and there pinkish or purplish spots, indi- 
cating inflammation. The right lobe of the liver was 



LEAD POISONING. 6oi 

discolored, having a dark, unhealthy look. The small 
intestine showed evidence of intense inflammation 
through its length, and the rectum was also inflamed. 

The swan was examined a few days later than the 
goose, and several days after its death. Its gizzard 
contained perhaps twenty or thirty grains of corn, 
which were softened, but not at all digested, or even 
abraded. The gizzard contained no sand, but it did 
contain a quantity of yellowish, jelly-like matter, which 
appeared to be the broken down walls of the gizzard 
lining. At the posterior part of the gizzard w^ere a 
dozen particles of lead, two of them evidently No. 4 
shot, and the others small ground-up fragments of shot 
which had lost shape and size. The tough lining mem- 
brane of the gizzard was black in color, had lost all 
character, and could be picked off piece by piece like 
rotten wood or burned leather. The subjacent white 
membrane showed the pink and purple spots of inflam- 
mation noted in the same membrane of the goose. The 
small intestine was highly inflamed throughout its 
whole tract. The liver was absolutely black and very 
soft. 

From these examinations I conclude that the birds 
dissected died from chronic lead poisoning, the cause of 
which was sufficiently obvious. 

Each season great quantities of shot are fired on 
the waters of this sound, and much of it falls on the 
feeding grounds of the wildfowl. In feeding, the geese, 
ducks and swans — whether by accident or design — take 
into the stomach with sand and gravel and food, more 



6o2 DUCK SHOOTING. 

or less of this shot. When tlie shot has passed into the 
gizzard it is subjected to the same grinthng process as 
the grass, grain or other food, and, being softer than 
the sand, it is ground into minute particles. These fine 
particles, acted on by the acids of the digestive organs, 
yield a soluble lead salt, which, being absorbed into the 
general system, causes death. 

In a subsequent note to Forest and Stream, signed by 
A Member of the Narrows Island Club, additional 
facts bearing on the subject were printed, as follows : 

"At Narrows Island the goose pen stands on the bor- 
der of a channel known as the Little Narrows, which, 
in times of severe cold weather, is always open, and 
during a freeze-up is a great flyway for ducks. Gun- 
ners shooting about this channel at such times have for 
many years scattered shot over the marsh, the water 
and the mud. 

"Until a year or two since, the goose pen stood partly 
on the marsh and partly over the muddy shore, and en- 
closed no high land. The live decoy geese and ducks, 
being unable to supply themselves with sand or gravel, 
were industrious in searching through the mud for the 
hard particles necessary to the proper digestion of their 
food, and until recently we were constantly troubled 
by having our decoy geese and ducks sick with the 
'croup.' However, after the death of Capt. Ryder, our 
former superintendent, we moved and enlarged the 
goose pen, so that it now takes in a piece of high 
ground, where there is some sand, with plenty of bro- 



SELF-DENIAL NEEDED. 603 

ken oyster shells. We also give the geese the best corn 
we can buy, and every once in a while feed them with 
grass. As the birds can now readily obtain sand and 
fragments of oyster shells, they supply their wants with 
these substances, and are thus much less likely to take 
in any considerable quantity of the shot which may 
still remain within the limits of the pen. It is, of course, 
evident that to keep these captive birds in a state of 
health they should be surrounded as nearly as possible 
by natural conditions." 

It would appear that the ducks, in their feeding 
through the borders of the marsh and in the mud in 
which they dabble, often come upon the particles of 
shot so thickly scattered over the shooting ground 
and take them into the alimentary canal, whence 
they pass down into the gizzard. Until they reach the 
mill in which the wildfowl grinds his food, these pel- 
lets do the bird no harm, but when reduced to powder 
and acted on by acids they become a violent poison. 



SELF-DENIAL NEEDED. 

It must be obvious to any one who will take an un- 
prejudiced view of the subject that the settling up of a 
large portion of the North American continent has de- 
prived our wildfowl of much of their ancient breeding 
ground. It must also be evident that the great and 
constantlv increasingf number of gfunners scattered 



604 DUCK SHOOTING. 

over the country where the wildfowl spend nearly two- 
thirds of the year, and shooting during all this time, 
must destroy more of these fowl than, under the most, 
favorable circumstances, can be bred in the far North, 
where they are comparatively little disturbed during 
their sojourn there during the breeding season. 

We must look at fowl-shooting just as we do at 
every other form of field sport. x'Vs game and fish be- 
come more scarce, limitations must be placed on their 
capture, and those methods of destruction which are 
most sweeping in their results must be forbidden by law 
or by public sentiment. Game laws are enacted for 
the general good — for the good of people to-day, and in 
the future — and they ought to be framed to subserve the 
greatest good to the greatest number, and to preserve 
for the use of all our people as great a number as pos- 
sible of our beautiful wild creatures. Although the 
seining of trout affords a most successful means of 
taking fish, it is made illegal by statute, because it de- 
stroys on such a wholesale scale that a few men might 
soon capture all the fish in a stream, and there would 
be none left for others. 

Thus, if we are to continue to have any duck shoot- 
ing, limitations of one sort or another must be put on 
this sport, just as such limitations are put on the shoot- 
ing of other birds and animals, and the taking of fish. 
Gunners must consent to practice. self-control. Fewer 
birds must be killed each season. 

These limitations should act in two directions, viz., 
in shortening the time during which fowl may be shot. 



BATTERIES AND BUSH BLINDS. 605 

and in doing away with those methods of shooting- 
which are most destructive. The time for shooting 
can be shortened only by cutting off several months 
from the present season, and it would undoubtedly be 
for the advantage of all gunners if all the States were 
to pass laws forbidding the shooting of ducks from 
February ist to September ist. Such a change would 
give five months of gunning to people living in the 
South, but only three months to those who live in the 
North, an apparent hardship, but one that must be 
borne. 



BATTERIES AND BUSH BLINDS. 

In order to lessen the destruction of fowl, those 
methods of gunning which are most destructive should 
be done away with. One of these destructive modes 
of gunning is battery shooting. This should be given 
up, not in order to benefit or to injure any man, or any 
class of men, but solely in order that fewer birds may 
be killed. Up to a certain point, wildfowl are able to 
protect themselves from shore shooters. They can, if 
they please, sit out in the broad waters, and away from 
the shore, but they cannot protect themselves from bat- 
teries placed on their feeding grounds, nor from sail 
boats which follow them from place to place. The birds 
must eat, and when they wish to do so they are sure to 
go to their feeding grounds, and to the decoys anchored 
there, and so expose themselves to the gunner. In 



6o6 DUCK SHOOTING. 

many localities where batteries are used it is a common 
practice for the tender, after the morning flight is over, 
to visit in his sail boat all the rafts of fowl in the vicin- 
ity, and "stir them up," in the hope that some of them 
may go to the decoys near the box. 

Battery shooting is still practiced in our southern 
coast waters. The batteries are located on the feeding 
grounds, and are rigged out with large stands of de- 
coys. There is nothing whatever to arouse the suspi- 
cion of the oncoming ducks, which go directly to the 
decoys, and then are shot at, apparently from the sur- 
face of the water. It is true that after a time birds 
learn to know the batteries, and after they have been 
shot at a few times they often scatter, leaving the 
ground where the batteries are anchored, and disperse 
in small bunches to other localities where batteries are 
not anchored. 

The bush blinds, so often referred to, are commonly 
used by gunners on the Chesapeake Bay and its tribu- 
tary waters, as well as on shoal waters further to the 
southward. They are described in another place. Usu- 
ally they are set up on shoals, in the broad water, and on 
feeding grounds near the shore, in the line of the ducks' 
flight, and, being built before the birds come on in the 
autumn, do not for some time become objects of sus- 
picion to the fowl. When surrounded by a good stand 
of decoys, they are very deadly, and if set up, as they 
often are, during a freeze, in air holes, wonderfully 
good shooting may be had from them. 

They are very destructive to fowl, and the different 



NIGHT SHOOTING. 607 

States should forbid their use, for the reason that they 
interfere with the feeding of the fowl, and tend to 
render them suspicious even of the waters over which 
they fly. 



NIGHT SHOOTING. 

Fifteen or twenty years ago night shooting, often 
with "big guns," was commonly practiced on many of 
the best ducking grounds in the Chesapeake Bay. The 
gunner, usually with a reflecting headlight in the bow 
of the skiff, paddled quietly up to the great rafts of 
fowl resting on the water, and shot into them with huge 
guns, ten or twelve feet long, and carrying a pound or 
more of shot. The use of such guns was forbidden by 
law, but it was exceedingly difficult to procure evidence 
against the men who used them. The public sentiment 
of the community was on the side of the law-breakers, 
and people generally were willing to give them warn- 
ing of the approach of law officers. In 1883, some of 
the ducking clubs on the Chesapeake Bay made special 
efforts to put an end to this shooting, and several of 
the big guns were captured and their owners were 
arrested. The local gunning population discovered 
at last that the members of the clubs were in earnest, 
and a treaty was entered into by which the law-break- 
ers agreed, if they were not prosecuted, to give up their 
big guns and the practice of night shooting. Since 



6o8 DUCK SHOOTING. 

then there has been comparatively Uttle law-breaking 
in this particular respect. 



WHAT SHALL BE DONE? 

Over, at least, one-fourth, and probably a greater 
area of the country, the inhabitants now have duck 
shooting in neither spring nor fall. If they desire to 
have a day or two in the blind or in the battery, it is 
necessary for them to travel some hundreds of miles, 
and to spend considerable sums of money, on the 
chance that they may get gunning. This state of things 
will continue, and as population increases, and as the 
fowl become fewer, the number of men who must go 
without shooting will increase. It is one of the condi- 
tions under which we live, and there is no escaping it. 

It is difficult to suggest how a general and effective 
change in the shooting laws of all the States and Prov- 
inces of the continent can be brought about. A few 
States, from time to time, have passed laws prohibiting 
spring shooting, but these laws have not always re 
ceived the support of public sentiment, and have in some 
cases been repealed. To accomplish much good, such 
laws should exist in all the States. 

The time is coming, however, and it cannot be long 
delayed, when gunners will be obliged to make a choice 
between having no shooting at all, or giving up some 
portion of the season that is now open. The operation 



WHAT SHALL BE DONE? 609 

of the game preserve system, which within a few years 
has become so extensive, is doing something to protect 
the birds, yet, in the nature of things, it cannot affect 
them much. Each year the ducks become less and less. 
Occasionally there are periods when, as in the autumn 
of 1899, some special cause — as a great drought pre- 
vailing over much of the country — concentrates the 
ducks where water can be had, and makes for those 
regions an apparent abundance; but it is quite certain 
that the greater numbers found there mean an abso- 
lute dearth somewhere else. Something radical must 
be done. Fewer fowl must be killed in order that more 
breeders may be left, and the stock of birds thus in- 
creased. 

If for five years gunning were stopped all over the 
country February ist, the shooting at the end of that 
time w^ould be so much better than it has been at any 
time for the last fifteen years that gunners throughout 
the land would be practically unanimous to have such 
a law made permanent for all time. 

The action, first advocated years ago by Forest and 
Si ream, and since then made law in a number of 
States, that the sale of game should be forbidden, is a 
long step in the right direction. This would put an end 
to shooting for the market, and would thus cut off one 
serious cause of the destruction of fowl. If such a law 
should meet with general favor, if the shooting after 
the I St of January or ist of February should be for- 
bidden, if the bags should be limited to twenty-five or 
thirty birds a day, new conditions would soon greet the 



6io 



DUCK SHOOTING. 



gunner, and birds might once again be seen on their 
old feeding grounds, in something hke their old-time 
plenty. 

1 repeat, then, that to bring back the ducks in their 
old-time abundance the gunners must agree to 

Stop spring shooting; 

Limit the size of bags for a day and a season; 

Stop the sale of game. 





INDEX. 



Africa, 88, 104. 

Aix sponsa, 139-142. 

Alabama, 336. 

Alaska, 35, 40, 41, 49, 54, 63, 64, 71, 73, 
109, 114, 124, 133, 13s, 149, 161, 166, 
168, 174, 179, 182, 186, 191, 196, 198, 
206, 210, 212, 227, 231. 

Albemarle Sound, 150, 172. 

Aleutian Islands, 64, 116, 182, 198. 

America, Arctic, 52, 83, 136, 186, 210, 
212, 218, 402. 

America, British, 114, 166, 168, 174, 
182, 320, 577. 

America, Central, 78, iii, 119, 124, 
148, 165, 168, 542. 

America, Nortli, 22, 23, 26, 40, 41, 60, 
72, 85, 91, 104, 107, 116, 119, 130, 132, 
135, 146, 148, 161, 165, 166, 168, 171, 
174, 182, 186, 193, 211, 218, 221, 224, 
231, 235- 

America, South, 78, 130, 221, 224, 542. 

Anas, 19. 

Anas americana, 110-115. 

Anas boschas, 87-92. 

Anas carolinensis, 118-121. 

Anas crecca, 116, 117. 

Anas discors, 122-125. 

Anas fulvigula, 95, 96. 

Anas fulvigula maculosa, 97, 98, 99. 

Anas obscura, 93, 94. 

Anas penelope, 107-109. 

Anas strepera, 103-106. 

Anatidae, 19, 22, 225. 

Anatinae, 23, 85. 

Anderson River, 218, 232. 

Anser, 41, 53. 

Anser albifrons, 53. 

Anseres, 19. 

Anserinae, 39, 75. 



Anticosti, 104. 

Autonnierre, 124. 

Apium, 158. 

Archaeopteryx, 19. 

Arctic Ocean, 54, 60, 63, 71, 90, 119, 

135, 206, 210, 353, 578. 
Arkansas, 562, 581, 582. 
Arkansas River, 260. 
Asia, 88, 104, 117, 165, 182, 190, 196, 

210. 
Assemblyman, 215. 
Atlantic Coast, 35, 40, 44, 47, 54, 60, 

63, 67, 70, 71, 89, 90, 105, 106, 112, 

148, 161, 190, 193, 201, 203, 2:2, 214, 

221, 235, 264, 273, 282, 294, 296, 332, 

402, 546, 568, 588. 
Audubon, J. J., 25, 36, 44, 63, 125, 

212, 228, 236, 237. 
Aythya aftinis, 167-169. 
Aythya collaris, 170-172. 
Aythya marila nearctica, 164-166. 
Aythya vallisneria, 147-159. 

Back Bay, 548. 
Back River, 483. 
Bald-crown, 115, 486. 
Bald-face, 115. 
Bald-head, 115. 
Bald-pate, no, in, 219, 486. 
Baltimore, 473, 474, 481, 483. 
Barnston, G., 44. 
Barren Lands, 54, 214. 
Bass River, 298. 
Batteries, 549-556, 605, 606. 
Beliefs Straits, 70. 
Bendire, Capt. C, 52, 149. 
Benjies, 474. 477- 

Bering Sea, 64, 71, 72, 73, 191, 206, 
210, 215. 



613 



6i4 



INDEX. 



Bering Straits, 21c. 

Bermuda, 105, 218. 

Bill, 19, 20. 

Bird, G., 509. 

Bittern, 360, 365, 400. 

Blackbird, 348, 387, 399, 524. 

Black-head, 138, 163, 165, 183, 236, 398, 

438, 474, 480, 481, 4S6. 
Black-head, Creek, 168. 
Black-head, Little, 165, 167-169, 171. 
Black-head, Ring-billed, 171. 
Black-head, Ring-necked, 171. 
Black-jack, 376. 
Black Walnut Point, 487. 
Blinds, 546-548. 
Blossom-bill, 219. 
Blossom-head, 219. 
Blue-bill, 165, 355, 362, 363, 364, 365. 
Blue-bill, Little, 168. 
Blue-bill, Marsh, 168, 171- 
Blue-bill, Mud, 168. 
Blue-bill, River, 168. 
Boardman, G. A., ici, 112, 175, 182, 

227, 235. 
Boats, 557-575- 
Booby, 222. 

Brandywine Creek, 158. 
Brant, 39, 40, 45, 54, 64, 65, 67-71, 279- 

316, 360, 362, 365, 368, 373. 374, 376. 
Brant, Bald, 45. 
Brant, Black, 40, 67, 69. 
Brant, Blue, 45. 
Brant, Goose, 63. 
Brant, Harlequin, 54. 
Brant, Pied, 54. 
Brant, Prairie, 54, 254. 
Brant, Salt-water, 55. 
Brant, Sea, 215. 
Brant, White, 278, 402. 
Brant Island, 599. 
Branta, 40. 

Branta bernicla, 67, 68. 
Branta canadensis, 56-64. 
Branta canadensis hutchinsii, 56, 58. 
Branta canadensis minima, 56, 59. 
Branta canadensis occidentalis, 56, 

58, 59- 
Branta leucopsis, 65, 66. 
Branta nigricans, 67, 69. 



Brass-eye, 177. 

Breeding-grounds, 27-31. 

Brewer, Dr. T. M., 28, 63, 90, 136. 

Brewster, W., 176. 

Bristle-tail, 222. 

British Columbia, 64, 105, 592. 

Broad-bill, 24, 163, 164-166, 167, 168, 

330, 423, 425, 426, 438, 453, 510. 
Broad-bill, Bastard, 171. 
Broad-bill, Fresh-water, 168 
Broad-bill, Hard-headed, 222. 
Broad-bill, Little, 168. 
Broad-bill, Mud, 168. 
Broad-bill, Red-headed, 163. 
Broad-bill, River, 168. 
Broad-bill, Sleepy, 222. 
Broady, 133. 
Brown, A. E., 533. 
Bull-head, 177. 
Burlington, 442. 
Bush River, 483. 
Butter-ball, 81, 153, 182, 183, 184, 376, 

510. 
Butter-box, 184. 
Butter-duck, 184. 

Calais, Me., loi, 112, 162, 172, 175, 
179, 182, 228. 

California, 35, 41, 42, 47, 52, 54, 6i, 
64, 72, 78, 79, 89, 105, 109, 114, 127, 
148, 161, 165, 172, 186, 190, 212, 215, 
221, 278, 335, 340, 430, 464, 465, 493, 
592- 

Camptolaimus labradorius, 192-194. 

Canada, 31, 90, 91, 98, 177, 570, 590. 

Canard Frangais, 91. 

Cape Cod, 295, 297, 300, 315. 

Cape Malabar, 298. 

Carroll's Island, 2^2, 474-479. 

Cary, W. A., 315. 

Cascade Mountains, 149. 

Castle, W. W., 580. 

Cavileer, N., 463. 

Celery, Wild, 157. is8, 318, 486. 

Champlain, Lake, 224, 441, 527. 

Charitonetta albeola, 175, 181-184. 

Chase Pass, 320, 321. 

Chatham, 296, 299, 302. 

Chen, 41, 53. 



INDEX. 



6i-^ 



Chen cserulescens, 43-45. 

Chen hyperborea, 46, 47. 

Chen hyperborea nivalis, 48-50. 

Chenalopex, -5. 

Chesapeake Bay, 35, 98, 112, 149, 158, 

162, 212, 218, 244, 274, 280, 436, 440, 

472-489, SIS, 519. 547. 589. 593. 596, 

606, 607. 
Chester River, 485, 487, 488. 
Chile, 130. 
China, 141, 231. 
Choptank River, 485, 486, 487. 
Clangula hyemalis, 185-188. 
Cob-head, 177. 
Cock-robin, 237. 
Coit, O. B., 453- 
Cold Spring Harbor, 538. 
Colorado, 105, 120. 
Columbia River, 127. 
Commander Islands, 73, 182. 
Connecticut, 99, 120, 136, 418, 481. 
Cook's Inlet, 64. 
Coot, 201, 212, 214, 215, 218, 219, 296, 

330, 331. 421. 422, 423, 424, 425, 431, 

453. 534- 
Coot, Bell-tongue, 215. 
Coot, Booby, 222. 
Coot, Brant, 215. 
Coot, Brown, 219. 
Coot, Bull, 215. 
Coot, Butter-boat-billed, 219. 
Coot, Gray, 219. 
Coot, Hollow-billed, 218. 
Coot, Patch-polled, 219. 
Coot, Pied-winged, 215. 
Coot, Ouill-tail, 222. 
Coot, Sleepy, 222. 
Coot, Spectacle, 219. 
Coot, Spectacled-bill, 219. 
Coot, Uncle Sam, 215. 
Coot, White-winged, 214, 421. 
Coppermine River, 206. 
Core Sound, 150, 172. 
Coues, Dr. E., 127. 
Cow-frog, 133. 
Crane, 347, 348. 

Crane. Sandhill, 38, 362. 365, 377, 538. 
Cuba, 49, 54, 119, 13s, 174. 
Cub-head, 177. 



Cunningham, J., 566. 

Curlew, Sickle-bill, 413. 

Currituck Sound, 35, 40, 49, 54, 61, 
65. 150, 151. 157. 172, 236, 244, 246, 
378, 380, 383, 402, 403, 534, 548, 598, 
599- 

Cutbank Creek. 52. 

Cygnin:e, 22, 33-38. 

Cygnus, 33. 

Cygnus buccinator, 36-38. 

Cygnus columbianus, 34, 35. 

Cygnus cygnus, 35. 

Dafila acuta, 82, 134-138. 

Dakota, 133, 135, 148, i6t, 168, 212, 

253. 255. 
Dakota, North, 165, 251, 318, 321, 327, 

461, 588, 592, 596. 
Dakota, South, 251. 
Dall, Dr. W. H., 35, 73, 124, 149, 166, 

310. 

Dapper, 184. 

Darlington, Dr., 158. 

Dawson, 320. 

Dead Buffalo Lake, 318. 

Decoys, 61, 70, 89, loi, 162, 244, 252, 
253. 254, 257, 260-263, 268-273, 279, 
300, 301, 303, 304, 372, 373, 377, 384- 
387, 391, 425, 426, 434-436, 441, 443- 
447. 463. 469, 484. 485. 522-532, 549, 
555- 

Delaware, 49, 457. 

Delaware Bay, 278. 

Delaware River, 40, 203, 218, 457. 

Dendrocygna, 23, 75. 

Dendrocygna autumnalis, 76-78. 

Dendrocygna fulva, 79, 80. 

Denmark, 196. 

Derbyshire, 191. 

Die-dipper, 184. 

Dipper, 183, 184, 330. 

Dipper, Little, 177. 

Dipper, Scotch, 184. 

Distribution, 26. 

Diver, 184, 360. 

Diver, Dip-tail, 222. 

Diver, Saw-bill, 237. 

Dogs, 406-410, 431, 515-521. 



6i6 



INDEX. 



Domestication, 52, 59, 61, 62, 66, 70, 
77, 100, 117, 142, 372, 532-54S. 

Dopper, 184. 

Douglas, Mr., 567. 

Dovekie, 402. 

Drake, Sea, 201. 

Drake, Welsh, 106. 

Drake, Wild, 91. 

Duck, Big Fowl, 165. 

Duck, Black, 24, 25, 52, 91, 93, 94, 
98, 99, 100, loi, 102, 132, 136, 232, 
292, 296, 312, 330, 331, 355, 378, 387, 
390, 392, 398, 403, 421, 423, 425, 443, 
456, 488, 507, 510, 524, 527, 532, 533. 

Duck, Black-bellied Tree, 76-78, 80. 

Duck, Blaten, 106. 

Duck, Brewer's, 25. 

Duck, Brown Tree, 79. 

Duck, Buffalo-headed, 184. 

Duck, Buffle-head, 175, 181-184, 330, 
531- 

Duck, Butler, 133. 

Duck, Call, 543. 

Duck, Canvas-back, 24, 112, 137, 144, 
147-159, 160, 161, 162, 169, 236, 319, 
320, 332, 3SS. 376, 379. 382, 391, 392, 
398, 438, 473, 474, 482, 486, 493, 495, 
510, 544- 

Duck, Channel, 215. 

Duck, Conjuring, 177, 184. 

Duck, Corn-field, yy. 

Duck, Creek, 106. 

Duck, Deaf, 222. 

Duck, Domestic, 87, 88, gi. 

Duck, Dusky, 93, 98, :oi. 

Duck, English, 91. 

Duck, Fiddler, yy. 

Duck, Florida, 96, 97, 102. 

Duck, Florida Dusky, 95, 96, loi, 
102. 

Duck, Fool, 222. 

Duck, French, 91. 

Duck, Fulvovis-bellied Tree, 79, 80. 

Duck, German, 106. 

Duck, Gray, 91, 106. 

Duck, Harlequin, 81, 189-191, 418, 
425. 

Duck, Heavy-tailed, 222. 



Duck, Isles of Shoals, 201. 

Duck, Labrador, 192-194. 

Duck, Little Brown, 184. 

Duck, Long-legged, 77. 

Duck, Long-tailed, 81, 185-188, 418, 

422, 426. 
Duck, Mandarin, 21, 141, 542, 544. 
Duck, Masked, 223, 224. 
Duck, Mottled, 97, 98, 99, 102. 
Duck, Mountain, 191. 
Duck, Muscovy, 25, 91. 
Duck, Old-squaw, 82, 185-188, 215, 219, 

33Q, 418, 422, 423, 424, 425, 426, 437, 

453. 461, 481. 534- 
Duck, Pacific Eider, 84. 
Duck, Painted, 191. 
Duck, Pied, 193. 
Duck, Pied Gray, 138. 
Duck, Raft, 165. 
Duck, Red-headed Raft, 163. 
Duck, Ring-necked, 170-172. 
Duck, Rock, 191. 
Duck, Ruddy, 153. 177, 220-222, 224, 

532. 
Duck, Rufous-crested, 145, 146. 
Duck, Sand-shoal, 193. 
Duck, Scaup, 83, 165. 
Duck, Scotch, 184. 
Duck, Sea, 201, 218, 305. 
Duck, Shoal, 201. 
Duck, Skunk, 193. 
Duck, Sleepy, 222. 
Duck, Smoking, 115. 
Duck, Spirit, 177, 184. 
Duck, Steller's, 195, ig6. 
Duck, Stock, 91. 
Duck, Summer, 533. 
Duck, Surf, 218. 
Duck, Tufted, 171, 376, 438. 
Duck, Washington Canvas-back, 163. 
Duck, Wheat, 115. 
Duck, Wild, 91. 
Duck, Wood, 25, 139-142, 175, 176, 

235. 356, 357. 363. 365. 366. 367. 535. 

540-544- 
Duck, Yellow-bellied Fiddler, 80. 
Duckinmallard, 91. 
Ducks, Diving, 143-224, 486. 



INDEX. 



6iy 



Ducks, Fish, 23, 225-237. 

Ducks, Fresh-water, 24, 25, 81, 85, 98, 

112, 136, 137, 144, 169. +26. 431- 
Ducks, Non-diving, 85-142. 
Ducks, Sea, 23, 24, 81, 143, 144, 214, 

225, 232, 418, 425. 
Ducks, Shoal-v^ater, 23, 143. 
Ducks, Tree, 23, 75-80, 542. 

Eagle, White-headed, 398. 

Eastern Bay, 485, 486, 487. 

Economic value, ^6, 27, 31. 

Eel-grass, 158, 296. 

Eggs, Exportation of, 577-579. 

Eggs, Iniportation of, 577. 

Egret, Snowy, 360, 365. 

Eider, 27, 28, 29, 30, 81, 84, 187, 305, 

331, 418, 425. 
Eider, American, 202-204. 
Eider, Common, 200, 201, 202, 203. 
Eider, King, 208-210, 425. 
Eider, Pacific, 205-207. 
Eider; Spectacled, 197-199. 
Elliot, D. G., 64, 112, 144, 179, 183, 

232. 237. 246. 
Elliot, H. VV., 73. 
Enemies, 596, 597. 
England, 66, 106, 577. 
Eniconetta stelleri, 195, 196. 
Erie, Lake, 179, 210. 
Erismatura rubida, 220-222. 
Eskimo, 44, 61, 74, 198, 250, 597. 
Europe, 65, 66, 70, 88, 104, 109, iii, 

165, 174, 179, 186, 190, 191, 201, 227, 

231. 235, 544- 

Falkland Islands, 130. 
Fargo, 329. 
Farmer, G. T., 563. 
Fielden, Capt., 69. 
Fisherman, 233. 
Fisherman's Lake, 278. 
Fishing Bay, 485. 
Flight, 508-510. 
Floating, 464. 

Florida, 35, loi, 102, 109, 124, 127, 168, 
186, 236. 



Food of Ducks, 23, 24, 80, 85, 98, 99, 
100, 112, 124, 125, 143, 148, 157, 165. 
169, 176, 188, 204, 206, 210, 214, 225, 
229- 353. 371, 418, 454, 462, 464, 486, 
534. 539. 541, 593- 

Food of Geese, 41, 48, 50, 55, 70, 251, 
283, 297, 372. 

Food of Swans, 245. 

"Forest and Stream," 150-157, 175, 
176, 228, 251, 255-259, 264-267, 268- 
273, 274-278, 295-315, 317-330, 336-340, 
341-351. 355-365, 416, 449-453, 453-455. 
465-472. 517-520, 528-532, 534-545, 558, 
560, 577, 579, 580, 581, 585, 598, 6q2, 
609. 

Fort Brown, 78. 

Fort Missoula, 52. 

Fort Tejon, 78. 

Fort Yukon, 149. 

Franklin Bay, 71. 

Eraser River, 37. 

Fuca, Straits of, 71. 

Fuligulinse, 20, 23, 143. 

Fulix affinis, 137. 

Fundy, Bay of, 203, 210. 

Gadwall, 25, 83, 103-106, 433. 

Galveston, 598. 

Gavia imber, 308. 

Geese, 19, 21, 22, 39-74, 250-278, 331 
332. 360, 363. 365, 366, 367, 368, 369 
370, 376, 404. 405, 406, 421, 424, 425 
433, 437. 461, 462, 463. 464. 467. 487 
488, 495, 524, 527. 534. 538, 585, 586 
599- 

Georgia, 509. 

Georgia, Gulf of, 215. 

Giraud, J. P., 106, 193. 

Glaucionetta clangula americana; 
173-177- 

Glaucionetta islandica, 178-180. 

Golden-eye, 173-177, 178, 180, 418. 

Golden-eye, Barrow's, 175, 178-180 
231. 

Golofin Sound, 7:. 

Goosander, 225, 227, 229, 231, 404. 

Goose, Bald-headed, 45. 

Goose, Barnacle, 40, 65, 66. 

Goose, Blue, 40, 43-45. 49. 254. 374- 



6i8 



INDEX. 



Goose, Brant, 67. 

Goose, Cackling, 56, 59, 64. 

Goose, Canada, 22, 40, 41, 56-64, 68, 

254, 258, 296, 374, 377, 402, 469. 471. 

472, 520, 533. 
Goose, Chinese, 533. 
Goose, Egyptian, 533. 
Goose, Emperor, 72-74. 
Goose, Eskimo, 63. 
Goose, Great Gray, 40, 41, 353, 362, 

402, 424, 472. 
Goose, ureater Snow, 48-50, 51. 
Goose, Hutchins's, 56, 57, 58, 59, 63, 

254- 
Goose, Laughing, 54, 374. 
Goose, Lesser Snow, 46, 47. 
Goose, Marsh, 63. 
Goose, Mud, 63. 
Goose, Prairie, 63. 
Goose, Ross's, 40, 49, 50, 51, 52, 67. 
Goose, Snow, 40, 52, 55, 254, 374, 377, 

402. 
Goose, Tundrina, 64. 
Goose, Western, 56, 58, 59. 
Goose, White, 469, 472. 
Goose, White-cheeked, 56, 57, 58, 59, 

64- 
Goose, White-fronted, 41, 53-55> 254, 

374. 377- 
Goose, White-headed, 45, 74. 
Gotdhaab, 70. 
Grand Island, 442, 443. 
Grand Lake Stream, 228. 
Greaser, 222. 

Great Britain, 66, 117, 196. 
Great-head, 177. 
Great Lakes, 143, 203, 210, 214, 218, 

453- 
Great Slave Lake, 124, 136, 149. 
Great South Bay, 162, 166, 273, 280, 

2S2, 283, 294, 434. 
Grebe, 431. 
Greece, 88. 
Green River, 374. 
Greenhead, 91. 
Greenland, 22, 27, 35, 54, 65, 70, 135, 

210, 216, 231, 402. 
Grouse, 326. 
Gulf States, 124. 



Gull, Bonaparte's, 232. 
Gunpowder River, 476, 477, 483. 
Guns, 493-495- 

Hairy-crown, 237, 403, 404. 

Hairy-head, 237. 

Hapgood, W., 295. 

Hard-head, 222. 

Hardtack, 222. 

Havre de Grace, 158, 473, 481, 484, 

544- 
"Hen, Guinea," 74. 
Hennepin Club, 566. 
Heron, 352, 360, 365, 400, 401, 524. 
Hickory-head, 222. 
Hills Point, 487- 

Histrionicus histrionicus, 189-191. 
Hogg Bay, 486. 
Holding, 502-506. 
Holland, 543. 
Holland Strait, 485. 
Hooper Straits, 485. 
Horse-head, 219. 
Hough, E., 317, 341. 
Hudson River, 351. 
Hudson's Bay, 37, 44, 47, 49, 65, 90, 

161, 186. 
Hudson's Bay Co., 31. 
Hybrids, 25, 91, 109, 402. 

Ice work, 572-575- 

Iceland, 27, 28, 179, iS6, 190, 191, 201, 

231. 
Idaho, 135, 591. 
Illinois, 89, 105, 109, 210, 335, 371, 374, 

430, 560. 
Illinois River, 210, 356, 565. 
India, 88. 

Indiana, 89, 236, 335, 374, 560, 567. 
Indians, 37, 44, 49, 61, 129, 130, 161, 

250, 354. 416, 597. 
Iowa, 99, 120, 520. 
li eland, 66, 117. 
Iron-head, 177. 

James Bay, 44. 
James River, 485. 
Japan, 135, 231. 
Jutland, 30. 



INDEX. 



619 



Kamschatka, 135. 
Kansas, 102. 
Kendrick Lake, 175. 
Kennebunkport, 425. 
Kennicott, R., 136. 
Kent Island Narrows, 485. 
Kent Point, 487. 
Kentucky, 236. 
Kipp, J., 52. 
Koshkonong, Lake, 569. 
Krider, J., 228. 
Kuskokwim River, 198. 

Labrador, 30, 44, 201, 203, 212, 214, 

218, 581. 
Labyrinth, 20. 
Lady, igi. 
Lamella;, 19, 225. 
Lamellirostral Swimmers, 19. 
Lapland, 117. 
Larus Philadelphia, 232. 
Lead-poisoning, 598-603. 
Light-wood knot, 222. 
Linden, C, 210. 
Little Choptank River, 485- 
Loading, 495-502. 
Lockwood. ^^'., 545. 
Long Island, 27, 40, 47, 65, 105, 112, 

132, 136, 149, 162, 273, 538, 593. 
Long Island Sound, 162, 166, 188, 

201, 209. 
Long-neck, 138. 
Loon, 308, 399, 421, 423, 437. 
Lophodytes cucullatus, 234-237. 
Lord, 191. 
Lores, 39. 
Lou's Point, 486. 

Louisiana, 77, 79, 80, 102, 133, 237. 
Loyd, A. T., 561. 

Macfarlane, R., 49, 63, 71, 2:8, 231. 

Mcllhenny. E. A., 83. 

Mackenzie River, 37, 54, 135. 

Maine, 44, loi, 136, 174, 190, 219, 231, 
23s. 418, 425. 

Mallard, 25, 52, 67, 81, 83, 87-92, 98, 
100, 114, 124, 131, 132. 135, 136, 137, 
138, 153. 259. 333. 336, 337. 338, 340, 
342, 343, 345, 355, 356, 357, 358, 362, 



363. 364. 365, 366, 367, 368, 369, 373, 

376, 388, 390, 403, 433, 448, 460, 462, 

463, 488, 495. 507, 510, 533, 535, 537, 

S40. 582. 
Mallard, Gray, 91. 
Manchester Club, 295, 316. 
Manitoba, 99, 251, 354, 461. 
Many, F. D., 526. 
Marcus Hook, 457, 458. 
Marionette, 184. 
Market, Gunning for the, 31, 32, 221, 

222, 457, 582, 592, 594, 595. 
Maryland, 109, 133, 260, 473, 574. 
Massachusetts, 70, 99, 136, 174, 179, 

221, 224, 260, 267, 2S0, 296, 418, 527, 

528. 
Maxwell's Point, 474. 
Mediterranean Sea, 1S6. 
Merganser, 19, 23, 81, 175, 177, 225- 

237, 542. 
Merganser, American, 226-229. 
Merganser, Hooded, 153, 175, 176, 

225, 234-237, 403, 542. 
Merganser, Red-breasted, 84, 230-233, 

404. 
Merganser americanus, 226-229. 
Merganser serrator, 230-233. 
j\^ergina, 23, 225-237. 
Mergus, 30. 
Mergus albellus, 237. 
Merrill, Dr. J. C, 52, 78, 416. 
Merry-wing, 177. 
Mesquin, 133. 
Mexico, 78, 79, 88, 105, III, 124, 162, 

182, 224, 320, 562. 
Mexico, Gulf of, 44, 60, 119, 135. 
Michigan, 90, 161, 540, 560, 592. 
Michigan, Lake, 179, 210, 540, 570. 
Migration, 25, 26. 
Miles River, 485, 486. 
Milford, Conn., 99. 
Milk River, 52. 
Minneapolis, 321. 
Minnesota, 41, 90, 99, 105, 148, 161, 

:68, 172, 335, 354, 591. 
Mississippi River, 37, 44, 45, 46, 54, 

56, 67, 105, 114, 124, 127, 212, 333. 

568, 580, 584, 590. 
Missouri, 581, 582. 



620 



INDEX. 



Missouri River, 22, 61, 351, 584. 
Molt, 27< 59. 60. 74. 81-84. 109. 206. 
Montagu, G., 82. 
Montana, 47, 50, 52, 120, 133, 135, 148, 

161, 166, 168, 191. 
Monomoy, 296, 298, 312. 
Monomoy Branting Club, 295, 301- 

316. 
Morris, J. G., 487, 488. 
Mud-hen, 360. 
Mud-shoveller, 133. 
Muscle-bill, 219. 
Myers, E. J., 264. 

Nantucket, 299. 

Nanset, 312. 

Narrows Island, 599, 602. 

Narrows Island Club, 61. 

National Game, Fish and Bird Pro- 
tective Association, 576, 577. 

Naumann, J. F., 30. 

Nebraska, 37, 99= 235. 251, 253, 255, 
585, 587. 

Nelson, E. W., 137, 198, 210. 

Netta rufina, 145, 146. 

Nevada, 79, 105, 161. 

New Brunswick, 98. 

New England, 26, 27, 40, 60, 70, 89, 
98, 99, 100, 105, 112, 119, 124, 132, 
136, 149, 162, 16s, 167, 168, 172, 177. 
186, 187, 188, 201, 209, 212, 214, 215. 
218, 219, 232, 236, 260, 295, 32^< 332. 
472, 557. 590. 

New Hampshire, loi, 591. 

New Jersey, 165, 193, 210, 457. 

New Orleans, 237. 

New York, 89, loi, 109, 116, 146. 165, 
193, 224, 330, 402. 433, 509, 538, 540, 
590. 

Newberry, Dr., 149. 

Newfoundland, 592. 

Noddy, 222. 

Nomonyx dominicus, 223, 224. 

North Carolina, 25, 49, 65, 70, 98, loi, 
109, 112, 133, 136, 149, 162, 165, 274, 
378, 379. 381. 402, 493. 524. 574. 592. 
598. 

North Park, 120. 

Norton Sound, 37, 64, 71, 74. 212. 



Nova Scotia, 65, 98, 59a. 
Nova Zembla, 1B6. 
Norway, 27, 28, 201. 

Ogdensburgh, 179. 

Ohio, 236, 335. 

Oidemia, 422. 

Oidemia americana, 211, 212. 

Oidemia deglandi, 213-215. 

Oidemia fusca, 216. 

Oidemia perspicillata, 217-219. 

Oie bleu, 45. 

Olor, 33. 

Ontario, 592. 

Ontario, Lake, 453. 

Oregon, 35, 52, 149. 

Over-shooting, 582-589. 

Pacific Coast, 35, 44, 47, 52, 60, 6z, 64, 

67. 71. 72, 105, 161, 182, 206, 212, 

214, 215, 235, 578. 
Paddy, 222. 
Pamlico Sound, 150. 
Parson's Island, 487. 
Patagonia, 130. 
Patch-head, 219. 
Pelican, 538. 

Pennsville, N. J., 459, 460. 
Pennsylvania, 109. 
Pewaukee Lake. 182. 
Phantom Pond, 465, 472. 
Pheasant, 136. 
Pheasant, Sea, 138. 
Pheasant, Water, 138. 
Philacte, 41. 
Philacte canagica, 72. 
Philadelphia, Academy of Natural 

Sciences of, 81. 
Philadelphia Zoological Garden, 533. 
Phillips, J. O., 528. 
Picket-tail, 138. 
Picot, L. J., 274. 
Pictured-bill, 219. 
Pierson, Messrs., 191. 
Pigeon, Passenger, 509. 
Pintail, 25, 82, 83, 91, 106. 113. 134- 

138, 222, 331, 403, 433, 456, 462, 463, 

495. 509, Sio, S4S- 
Pishaug, 219. 



INDEX. 



621 



Plaster-bill, 219. 

Platte River, 254, 255. 256, 260, 585- 

589- 
Plover, 360, 400. 
Plumage, 20, 21, 81-84. 
Poacher, 115. 

Pochard, European, 163, 544- 
Pocomoke Sound, 485. 
Point Barrow, 83, 198. 
Polk, B., 585- 
Poplar Island, 48s- 486. 
Powder, Nitre, 495-499- 
Pribilof Islands, 73. 
Prince Edward's Island, 297. 
Prince William Sound, 191. 
Printannierre, 124. 
Providence Club, 295, 316. 
Purdy, C. R., 283, 285. 
Pyramid Lake, 105. 

Rail, Carolina, 399. 

Redhead, 24, 25, 109, 112, 148, 160-163, 

171, 319. 320, 332, 343. 355. 379. 433. 

438, 456, 474, 480, 481, 486, 495. 510, 

533. 544- 
Redhead, Creek, 171. 
Rhode Island, 418. 
Ridgway, R.,4, 59. 83. 105. 161, 190. 218. 
Rio Verde, 127. 
Roanoke River, 274, 276. 
Robin-dipper, 184. 
Rock River, 374. 
Rocky Mountains, 47, 49. 89, m, 127, 

161, :68, 174, 179. 190, 191. 431. 447. 

584- 
Ross, J., 63, 149- 
Rupert House, 65. 
Russia, 117, 196- 

Sa-sar-ka, 74- 

Sacramento, 161, 278. 

Sacramento River, 464. 

Sacramento Valley, 278. 

Sailing, 460, 461. 

St. Lawrence, Gulf of, 104, 581. 

St. Lawrence Island, 196. 

St. Lawrence River, 179. 

St. Mary's Lake, 50. 

St. Michael's Island, 71. 

St. Paul, 321- 



San Diego, 71. 

San Francisco, 464, 465. 

San Francisco Bay, 465. 

San Joaquin River, 464. 

Sandpiper, 413. 

Sassafras River, 485. 

Sawbill, 233, 404. 

Sawbill, Big, 233. 

Sawbill, Little, 237, 542. 

Scaup, Ring-necked, 171. 

Scotchman, 184. 

Scoter, 187, 201, 330, 426, 461. 

Scoter, American, 211, 212. 

Scoter, American Velvet, 213-215. 

Scoter, Black, 418. 

Scoter, Surf, 212, 217-219. 

Scoter, Velvet. 216. 

Scoter, White-winged, 212, 418. 

Semmes, J. E., 483. 

Sennett, G. B., 97, 102. 

Sharp-tail, 138. 

Sheep Island Point, 153. 

Sheldrake, 28, 30, 22S, 230-233, 250, 
314, 426, 453, 542. 

Sheldrake, European, 30, 75. 

Sheldrake, Pied, 233. 

Sheldrake, Swamp, 237. 

Shelduck, 233. 

Shepard, C. VV., 28, 179. '91. 231. 

Shinnecock Bay, 273. 

Shooting, Bar, 294-316, 330, 331. 

Shooting, Battery, 433-44°, 484. 485- 

Shooting, Brant, 279-316. 

Shooting, Brant, from a battery, 
279-294. 

Shooting, California Marsh, 463-472. 

Shooting, Cornfield, 371-377- 

Shooting, Duck, 317-489- 

Shooting, Duck, in Chesapeake Bay, 
472-489. 

Shooting, Duck, in the overflow, 

333-335- 
Shooting, Duck, in the wild rice 

fields, 351-371- 
Shooting from a house-boat, 440-447- 
Shooting, Goose, 250-278. 
Shooting, Goose, driving, 274-278. 
Shooting, Goose, on the sand-bars, 

254-260. 



622 



INDEX. 



Shooting, Goose, on the stubbles, 

-;5i--'53- 
Shooting, Goose, with live decoys, 

260-274. 
Shooting, Ice Hole, 447-453. 
Shooting in the Ice, 455-460. 
Shooting, Night, 48i-4b3, 607. 
Shooting, Pass, 317-332. 
Shooting, Point, 377-417, 426. 
Shooting, Pond, 464. 
Shooting, Kiver, 335-351- 
Shooting, Sea, 418-430. 
Shooting, Spring, 5:59-592. 
Shooting, Stubbie, 461-463. 
Shooting, Swan, 244-249. 
Shooting, Winter Duck, 453-455. 
Shot, 500-502. 
Shot-pouch, 222. 
Shovei-bill, 133. 
Shoveller, 19, 91, 13>-I33. 433- 
Shoveller, Blue-winged, 133. 
Shoveller, Red-breasted, 133. 
Shuffler, Ring-billed, 171. 
Siberia, 66, y^' -206. 
Sierra Nevada Mountains, 105, 190, 

191. 
Silver Lake, 268, 527. 
Sitka, 179. 

Skunk-head, 217-219, 418. 
Sleepy Brother, 222. 
Sleepy-head, 222. 
Smew, 237. 
Smith, J. G., 520. 
Smithsonian Institution, 210. 
Snipe, 137, 360, 365, 400. 
Snuff-taker, 219. 
Somateria dresseri, 202-204. 
Somateria mollissima, 305, 313. 
Somateria mollissima borealis, 200, 

201. 
Somateria spectabilis, 208-210. 
Somateria v-nigra, 205-207. 
South Carolina, 70, 112, 149, 162, 236, 

274. 574- 
Southern States, 89, 100, 112, 141, 335, 

592. 
Spain, 88. 

Species, Number of, 26, 85. 
Speckled Belly, 54, 106. 



Speculum, 21. 

Spesutia Island, 474, 483. 

Spike-bill, 237. 

Spike-tail, i^i. 

Spindle-tail, i3t). 

Spine-tail, 222. 

Spitzbergen, 66, 70, 186. 

Split-tail, 138. 

Spoon-bill, 132, 324, 363. 

Sprig-tail, 113, 13S, 362, 363, 366, 389, 

460, 488. 
Squealer, 191. 
Stanley, B., 564. 
Steel-head, 222. 

Stejneger, Dr. L., 27, 30, 182. 
Stephenson Lake, 598. 
Stewart's Island, 71. 
Stick-tail, 222. 
Stiff-tail, 222. 
Stone, N. C, 54- 
Stone, \V., 82-84. 
Stub and Twist, 222. 
Suisun Bay, 464, 465. 
Suisun Marsh, 464. 
Surprise, Lake, 598. 
Susquehanna Flats, 149, 589. 
Susquehanna River, 4S3. 
Swaddle-bill, 133. 
Swan, Australian Black, 22. 
Swan, Common, 22, 34, 35. 
Swan, Mute, 533. 
Swan, Trumpeter, 22, 34, 36-38. 
Swan, Whooping, 35. 
Swans, 21, 22, 33-38, 39. 244-249. 363. 

413, 414-416, 461, 464, 467, 469, 472, 

487, 488, 495, 519, 538. 
Sweden, 196. 
Sylt, Island of, 28, 30. 

Tadorna, 30. 

Tangier Sound, 485. 

Tar Bay, 485, 487. 

Tarsus, 39. 

Teal, 25. 132, 325, 340, 335, 356, iii, 

365. 368, 375, 376, 462, 488, 507, 535. 
Teal, Blue-winged, 83, 120, 122-125, 

358, 362. 363, 364, 538. 540. 
Teal, Cinnamon, 83, 123, 126-130, 538. 
Teal, European, 1:6, 117. 



INDEX. 



625 



Teal, Green-winged, 107, 116, 117, 
118-121, 123, 125, 133, 135, 363, 433, 

535. 538. 539- 
Teal, Red-breasted, 130, 433. 
Teal, Scotch, 184. 
Teal, Spoon-billed, 133. 
Teal, Summer, 123. 
Texas, 47, 49, 63, 77, 79, 80, 102, 133, 

163, 224, 320, 598. 
Toling, 480, 481. 
Tolleston Club, 569. 
Tough-head, 222. 
Townsend, VV., 441, 527. 
Trotter, VV., 480. 
'JVuckee River, 105. 
Trumbull, G., 63, 91, 104, 115, 133, 

13S, 168, 184, 191, 201, 215, 219, 222. 
Two Medicine Lodge Creek, 52. 

Unguirostres, 20. 

United States, 22, 23, 30, 31, 35, 37, 
56, 72, 75, 89, loi, 105, III, 112, 120, 
127, 135, 141, 148, 149, 161, 168, 171, 
174, 250, 251, 533, 571, 590. 

Utah, 99. 

Vallisneria spiralis, 158, 464. 
Van Dyke, T. S., 355. 
Vermont, 591. 

Virginia, 70, 109, 136, 149, 162, 165, 
274, 280, 548, 574. 



Wescott, C. S., 457. 

West Indies, 75, 168, 224. 

Whistler, 153, 173-177, 178, 179, 232, 

330, 376, 418. 423. 426, 453, 456, 534. 
Whistler, Brass-eyed, 177. 
Whistle-wing, 177. 
White-belly, 115. 
White-scop, 219. 
White-wing, Great May, 215. 
White-wing, May, 215. 
Widgeon, American, 24, 25, 83, 105, 

106, loS, 109, 110-115, 132, 137, 148, 

355. 363. 365. 390. 462, 480, 481, 486, 

507. 524, 544- 
Widgeon California, 115. 
Widgeon, English, 25, 403. 
\\ idgeon, European, 107-109, 544. 
Widgeon, Gray, 106, 138. 
Widgeon, Green-headed, 115. 
Widgeon, Sand, 106. 
Widgeon, Sea, 138. 
Widgeon, Southern, 115. 
Widgeon, Spoon-billed, 133. 
Winnipeg, 99. 
Wisconsin, 90, 120, 161, 172, 182, 210, 

224, 560, 563, 567, 568, 592. 
Wool-head, 184. 
Wren, Marsh, 352, 399. 
Wyoming, 25, 37, 91, 120, 127, 133, 

135. 143, 161, 212, 432. 

Xantus, Mr. 78. 



Wading the Marshes, 430-433. 
Walker, Dr., 70. 
Wamp, 201. 
Washington, 35, 253. 
Water-pheasant, 237. 
Waterton, C, 83. 
Wavy, Blue, 49. 
Wavy, Large, 49. 
Wavy, Small, 49. 



Yarrow, Dr. H. C, 99. 
Yellow-legs, 360, 400. 
Yellowstone Lake, 37, 143, 212. 
Yellowstone Park, 22. 
York Factory, 99. 

Yukon River, 35, 49, 124, 136, 137, 
179, 182. 

Zostera marina, 296. 



BOOKS INTERESTING TO GUNNERS 



Sent Postpaid on Receipt of Price. 



FOREST AND STREAM PUBLISHING CO., 

346 Broadway. New York. 



Names and Portraits of Birds 

Which Interests Gunners, with Descriptions in Language Understanded 
of the People. By Gurdon Trumbull. Cloth, 222 pages. Price, $2.50. 

Mr. Trumbull's new book on game birds is written on a plan which is 
entirely different from that of any book on birds hitherto published. It is 
a book which possesses a very great interest for the student of ornithology, 
and which will be still more warmly welcomed by the man who is not a 
student, but who loves to go shooting — who is, in fact, a plain, simple 
gunner. Mr. Trumbull has had the genius to break the soil in a field 
hitherto unworked. He has written a volume which, while not nominally 
an ornithology, because wanting in the technical terms by which scientists 
are enabled to confine their knowledge to a close guild, does nevertheless 
convey all the information to be found in the best works of ornithology, 
and gives such accurate descriptions of all our game birds "in language 
understanded of the people," that the average gunner, with this work at 
hand, would have little difficulty in identifying the contents of his bag 
from the text alone. Identification is further facilitated by portraits of the 
birds described, genuine portraits from the pencil of Mr. Edwin Sheppard, 
of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, who is well known 
for his admirable drawings of birds in "Baird, Brewer and Ridgway's 
Water Birds of North America." Apart from his characteristic treatment 
of the subject by confining himself to familiar language, the author has 
added another valuable feature to his work by following his birds all over 
the continent, and ascertaining the names popularly given them in every 
locality. 



2 Books Interesting to Gunners. 

Shooting on Upland, Marsh and Stream. 

By William Bruce Leffincwell. Illustrated. Cloth, 473 pages. Price, 
$3-S0. 

Contents: Bay Snipe, Coot and Other Wildfowl Shooting on the Atlantic 
Coast. The Woodcock. The Quails of California. The Ruflfed Grouse. 
Inland Duck Shooting in the United States. Bob White. Sharp-Tailed 
Grouse, Spruce Grouse and Ptarmigans. Plover Shooting. The Wild 
Pigeon. Snipe and Snipe Shooting. Western Field Sports in Early Days. 
Field Etiquette. Prairie Chickens— Pinnated Grouse. The Wild Goose. 
Wild Turkey Shooting. Concerning Pointers and Setters. The Canvas-back 
Duck. Guns. Coursing. 



North American Shore Birds. 

A History of the Snipes, Sandpipers, Plovers and their Allies inhabiting 
the beaches and marshes of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, the prairies 
and the shores of the inland lakes and rivers of the North American 
Continent; their popular and scientific names, together with a full de- 
scription of their mode of life, nesting, migration and dispersions, with 
descriptions of the summer and winter plumages of adults and young, 
so that each species may be readily identified. A Reference Book for 
the Naturalist, Sportsman and Lover of Birds, by Daniel Giraud 
Elliot. With 74 plates. Price, $2.50. 

Mr. Elliot's purpose being to make a book which should be for the sports- 
man and bird lover rather than for the naturalist, he has written his de- 
scriptions so that they shall be plain and easily comprehended. 



The Gallinaceons Game Birds of North America. 

By Daniel Giraud Elliot. Cloth. Price, $2.50. 

This includes the partridges, grouse, ptarmigan and wild turkey; with 
accounts of their dispersion, habits, nesting, etc., and a full description 
of the plumage of both adult and young, together with their popular and 
scientific names. The book is written both for those who love to seek these 
birds afield with dog and gun, and for those who may only desire to learn 
the ways of such attractive creatures in their haunts. There are numerous 
illustrations by Mr. Edwin Sheppard. 



"Wildfowl of the United States and British Possessions. 

Or the Swan, Goose, Ducks and Mergansers of North America; with 
accounts of their Ijatiits, nestings, migrations and dispersions; together 
with descriptions of the adults and young, and keys for the ready iden- 
tification of the species. By Daniel Giraud Elliot. With 63 plates. 
Cloth. Price, $2.50. 



Books Interesting to Gunners. 3 

Field, Cover and Trap-Shooting. 

Embracing Hints for Skilled Marksmen, Instructions for Young Sports- 
men, Haunts and Habits of Game Birds, Flight and Resorts of Water- 
fowl, Breeding and Breaking of Dogs. By Captain Adam H. Bogar- 
Dus, Champion Wing-Shot of the World. With an Appendix. Cloth, 
493 pages. Price, $2.00. 

For Bogardus it may well be claimed that he has made his mark on the 
shooting interests of the times. "Field, Cover and Trap-Shooting" is a 
book of instruction, and of that best of all instruction where the teacher 
draws from his own rich experience incident, anecdote and moral to illus- 
trate and emphasize his teaching. Such a mode inspires confidence, aids 
comprehension, carries conviction. The scope of the book — a work of 
nearly 500 pages — is shown by this list of chapters: I. General Introductory 
Remarks. II. Guns and their Proper Charges. III. Pinnated Grouse 
Shooting. IV. Late Pinnated Grouse Shooting. V. Quail Shooting in the 
West. VI. Ruffed Grouse Shooting. VII. Shooting the Woodcock. VIII. 
The Snipe and Snipe Shooting. IX. Golden Plover, Curlew and Gray 
Plover. X. Wild Ducks and Western Duck Shooting. XI. Ducks and 
Western Duck Shooting. XII. Wild Geese, Cranes and Swans. XIII. 
Wild Turkey and Deer Shooting. XIV. The Art of Shooting on the Wing. 
XV. Shooting Dogs — Breeding and Breaking. XVI. Pigeon Shooting — 
Trap Shooting. 



Hunting in Many I^ands. 

The Book of the Boone and Crockett Club. Editors: Theodore Roose- 
velt and George Bird Grinnell. Vignette. New York: Forest and 
Stream Publishing Company, 1895. Price, $2.50. 

In this volume much attention is given to the big game of America, but 
there are in addition accounts of hunting in other continents — in Africa, in 
China and Tibet — written by well-known explorers who are members of the 
club, and possessing an exceptional interest for men whose vise of the rifle 
has been confined solely to the North American Continent. The present 
volume is larger than its predecessor. It covers a broader field, and in 
its literary excellence it fully maintains the high standard set by "American 
Big-Game Hunting." "Hunting in Many Lands" contains fourteen articles 
that are signed by members, two that are editorial, and some matter per- 
sonal to the club and its members. The contents are: Hunting in East 
Africa. W. A. Chanler. To the Gulf of Cortez, George H. Gould. A Cana- 
dian Moose Hunt, Madison Grant. A Hunting Trip in India, Elliott 
Roosevelt. Dog Sledging in the North, D. M. Barringer. Wolf Hunting 
in Russia, Henry T. Allen. A Bear Hunt in the Sierras, Alden Sampson. 
The Ascent of Chief Mountain, Henry L. Stimson. The Cougar. Casper 
W. Whitney. Big Game of Mongolia and Tibet, W. W. Rockhill. Hunt- 
ing in the Cattle Country. Theodore Roosevelt. Wolf-Coursing. Roeer D. 
Williams. Game Laws, Charles E. Whitehead. Protection of the Yellow- 
stone National Park, George S. Anderson. The Yellowstone National Park 
Protection Act. Head-Measurements of the Trophies at the Madison 
Square Garden Sportsmen's Exposition. National Park Protective Act. 
Constitution of the Boone and Crockett Chih. Officers of the Boone and 
Crockett Club. List of Members. 



4 Books lutcrcftfinr/ to Gunners. 

American Big-Game Hunting. 

The Book of the Roone and Crockett Club. Editors: Theodore Roose- 
velt and George Bird Grtnnell. Illustrated. Cloth, 345 pages. 
Price, $2.50. 

This is a handsome, large octavo volume, richly bound in dark red cloth, 
with silver cover stamp of a buflfalo bull's head. It is superbly illustrated 
by sixteen full-page plates, which are either photographs from life or en- 
gravings made by our best artists. Perhaps no better idea of the contents 
of the book can be given than by printing the following table of contents. 
This includes a brief account of the objects and purposes of the Boone and 
Crockett Club, by the editors. A Buffalo Story, by Capt. George S. An- 
derson, Sixth Cavalry. The White Goat and His Country, by Owen Wis- 
ter, the well-known writer. A Day with the Elk. by Winthrop Chanler. 
Old Times in the Black Hills, by Col. Roger D. Williams. Big Game in 
the Rockies, by Archibald Rogers. Coursing the Prongbuck, by Theodore 
Roosevelt. After Wapiti in Wyoming, by F. C. Crocker. In Buffalo Days, 
by Geo. Bird Grinnell. Nights with the Grizzlies, by W. D. Pickett. The 
Yellowstone Park as a Game Preserve, by Arnold Hague. A Mountain 
Fraud, by Dean Sage. Black-Tails in the Bad Lands, by B. Rumsey. 
Photographing Big Game, by W. B. Devereux. Literature of American 
Big-Game Hunting. Our Forest Reservations. Constitution and By-Laws 
of the Club, and a List of Members of the Club. 



Trail and Camp-Fire. 

The P>ook of the Boone and Crockett Club. Editors: George Bird 
Grinnell and Theodore Roosevelt. Illustrated. 353 pages. Price, 
$2.50. 

Like its predecessors, the present volume is devoted chiefly to the great 
game and the outdoor life of Northern America; yet it does not confine 
itself to any one land, though it is first of all a book abovit America, its 
game and its people. The book is printed in uniform style with earlier 
volumi's of the club, on a heavy laid paper, beautifully illustrated, and 
bound in dark red with a silver stamp. 

Contents: The Labrador Peninsula, by A. P. Low. Cherry, by Lewis S. 
Thompson. An African Shooting Trip, by Wm. Lord Smith. Sintamaskin, 
by C. Grant La Farge ("Atlantic Monthly"). W'olves and Wolf Nature, 
by Geo. Bird Grinnell. On the Little Missouri, by Theo. Roosevelt. Bear 
Traits — a Berry Picker, by Geo. Bird Grinnell. A Silver Tip Family, by 
J. C. Merrill. The Bear's Disposition, by Theo. Roosevelt. Modern Bear 
Baiting, bv Henry L. Stimson. The Adirondack Deer Law, by Wm. Carry 
Sanger. A Newfoundland Caribou Hunt, by Clay Arthur Pierce. The 
Origin of the New York Zoological Society, by Madison Grant. 



Hunting Trips of a Rancliman. 

Sketches of Sport on the Northern Cattle Plains. By Theodore Roose- 
velt. Illustrated with 26 full-page illustrations. Cloth, 350 pages. 
Price, $3.00. 

"In this work Mr. Theodore Roosevelt has given a spirited and vivid de- 
scription of the great Northern cattle plains, and of the ranchman's life 
in the bad lands of the West." 



Books Interesting to Gunners. 5 

The "Wilderness Hunter. 

By Theodore Roosevelt. Illustrated. Price, $3.50. 

"Mr. Roosevelt is sufficiently known by his earlier writings as a keen 
sportsman, and one who looks at sport of whatever description from the 
best standpoint. His first book on this subject, 'Hunting Trips of a 
Ranchman,' was a charming volume, and the same may be said for the 
later, 'Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail.' To the present work he brings 
a riper hunting experience, and a literary style even more attractive than 
in his earlier works. There is a freshness and a breezy out-of-door flavor 
about it that calls up vividly to the mind the high, dry country where the 
cattle range, and the lofty crags where the white goat lies on the snowbanks 
in the shade. 'The Wilderness Hunter' presents a series of accurate pic- 
tures of outdoor life in the West, and these pictures are so cleverly drawn 
that the book will be interesting to the reader, whether he is familiar with 
such scenes or not. He who has taken part in such scenes and adventure 
will, as he reads the volume, be stirred over and over again by old-time 
memories. "^"Forest and Stream." 



Hunting and Fishing in Florida. 

Including a Key to the Water Birds Known to Occur in the State. By 
Charles B. Cory, F. L. S., Curator of the Department of Ornithology 
in the Field Columbian Museum, Chicago, III. Cloth. Price. $1.75 net. 

Describing the author's various hunting and fishing experiences during 
many years in Florida, often in company with the Seminole Indians. Pro- 
fusely illustrated, including many pictures of wild animals taken from life, 
ind giving description of the best hunting and fishing grounds, and how 
to reach them. Two hundred and forty cuts and two full-page photo- 
gravures. 

Contents: The Seminole Indians — Manners and Customs. Green Corn 
Dance. Clothing and Ornaments. Methods of Hunting. Location of Vil- 
lages. History. Vocabulary. The Florida Panther. A Panther Hunt. The 
Black Bear. Deer. Alligators and Crocodiles. Turkeys. Tarpon Fishing. 
The Hunting and Fishing Grounds of Florida. The Mammals of Florida. 
Remarks on Some of the Florida Snakes. Key to the Water Birds of Flor- 
ida — the Key alone contains some 170 illustrations. 



The Camp-Fires of the Everglades; or, "Wild Sports in 
the South. 

By Charles E. Whitehead. Size of page, 7 x 10. Price, $5.00. (Edition 
limited to 100 copies.) 

Mr. Whitehead's volume on old-time Florida, in the days before the war, 
is one of those beautiful and luxurious books which we see only now and 
then in the literature of sport. It is a most charming story, giving a won- 
derfully eflrective picture of Florida as it used to be. full of incident, of 
travel and shooting and Indian fighting. It is beautifully illustrated with 
engravings printed on vellum parchment, and with many tail-pieces and 
small cuts in the text, and will commend itself to every lover of the beauti- 
ful in book-making. 



*G Books Interesting to Gunners. 

Experts on Guns and Shooting. 

By G. T. Teasdale-Buckell. Cloth, 390 pages. Illustrated. Price, $4.00. 

The work gives the practical experience and personal views, founded on 
practice, of the leading gun makers of England. The subjects discussed 
are: The Evolution of Shooting During the Century; Shooting Schools; 
The Formation of Guns; Two Eyes in Shooting; Sights and Ribs to Guns; 
Style; The Shape of the Stock and Handiness; Cast-off and Bend; The Use 
and Abuse of the Try-Gun; Choke-Bores or Cylinders; Pigeon Shooting; 
Game Shooting; Heat of Gun Barrels and the Eflfects Upon Them of 
Various Powders; Cap-Testing; Shotgun Patterns; Hidden Dangers in the 
Shooting Fields; Loading of Cartridges with Various Powders. The ex- 
perts whose views are given are: Past-Masters Joe Manton and Joseph 
Lang; Atkin, Beesley, Boss & Co.; Churchhill, Cogswell & Harrison, 
Gibbs, Grant, Greener, Holland & Holland, Jones, Lancaster, James Purdy 
& Sons, Rigby, Watts, Webley, Richards. 



The Still-Hunter. 

A Practical Treatise on Deer-Stalking. By Theo. S. Van Dyke. Extra 
Cloth, Beveled, 390 pages. Price, I2.00. 

"The Still-Hunter" is a work devoted entirely to the subject on which it 
professes to give instruction. The author is a man familiar with the habits 
of deer and antelope, a familiarity acquired by long experience and careful 
observation, and in "The Still-Hunter" we get the results of his experience 
reduced to principles and carefully catalogued for ready use on all occa- 
sions. 



Rifle, Rod and Gun in California. 

Flirtation Camp; or, The Rifle, Rod and Gun in California. A Sporting 
Romance. By Theodore S. Van Dyke. Cloth, 300 pages. Price, $1.50. 

Contents: Black Brant and Curlew. First Glimpse of Inland Shooting. 
Coursing Hares. The Valley Quail of California. Goose Cavalry. Ducks 
and Quail. A Glance at the Olden Time. Among the Geese and Cranes. 
New Tactics. Easy Work at Duck Shooting. Bounding Beauty. The 
Mountain Trout. The Silver Trout at Home. The Great American Trout- 
Swine. In the Heart of Ciiamunga. Trout and Trouble. June Shooting. 
A June Buck. Corraling Antelope. Mountain Game. The Mountain Quail. 
Deer Hunting. Deer in Open Hills. Tracking Deer on Bare Ground. 
The Mutual Jokers. The Doctor's Last Hunt. 



The Gun and its Development. 

With Notes on Shooting. By W. W. Greener. Breech-Loading Rifles, 
Sporting Rifles, Shotguns, Gunmaking, Choice of Guns, Choke-Boring, 
Gun Trials, Theories and Experiments. Fully illustrated. Cloth, 770 
pages. New Editiqn. Price, $4.00. 

This is a book designed to monopolize the whole field in its special de- 
partment, and the author has treated the subject so exhaustively and with 



Books Interesting to Gunners. 7 

such evident care, that there is little temptation to enter the field in com- 
petition with him. "The Gun and its Development" is consequently the 
standard work of the age on projectiles and all relating to them. 



The Breecli-Iieader, and Hoiv to Use It. 

By W. W. Greener. Rewritten Edition, 1899. Illustrated. Cloth. 
Price, $1.50. 

"This treatise," says the author, "is written for that numerous class of 
sportsmen who delight in a day's shooting, but have neither the time nor 
the means to make the sport a life's study. Published at a popular price, it 
will, it is hoped, reach many who have hitherto been deterred from shoot- 
ing, believing it to be an expensive recreation. The author's aim is to 
induce all who can to participate in a manly sport, and to advance the 
interests of those who look to the gun for pleasure, health or occupation. 

"The book is not written for experts, nor for those who have special 
opportunities for the acquisition of the art of shooting; and in order to 
make it as attractive as possible to the general reader, many matters which 
would interest the enthusiastic shot only have been omitted." 



Hints and Points for Sportsmen. 

Compiled by "Seneca." Cloth, illustrated, 224 pages. Price, $1.50. 

This compilation comprises six hundred and odd hints, helps, kinks, 
wrinkles, points and suggestions for the shooter, the fisherman, the dog- 
owner, the yachtsman, the canoeist, the camper, the outer; in short, for 
the field sportsman in all the varied phases of his activity. The scope of 
the information it contains embraces a wide field, and "Hints and Point-s" 
has proved one of the most practically useful works of reference in the 
sportsman's library. 



The Trapper's Guide. 

A Manual of Instructions for Capturing All Kinds of Fur-Bearing Ani- 
mals, and Curing their Skins; with observations on the fur trade, hints 
on life in the woods, narratives of trapping and hunting excursions. 
By S. Newhouse and other trappers and sportsmen. Ninth Edition. 
Cloth. Illustrated. Price, |i.oo. 

This is the best book on trapping ever written. It gives full descriptions 
of all the animals w'hich the American trapper is likely to meet with, tells 
how they live, how to trap them, and how to care for and cure their pelts. 
No man who is interested in trapping animals, whether it be muskrats or 
bears, shotild be without this complete manual of instruction. 



Hitting vs. Missing. 

By S. T. Hammond ("Shadow"). Cloth. Price, $1.00. 

Mr. Hammond enjoys among his field companions the repute of being an 
unusually good shot, and one who is particularly successful in that most 



8 Books IntcrcstiiKj to Gunners. 

difficult branch of upland shooting, the pursuit of the rufifed grouse, or 
partridge. This prompted the suggestion that he should write down for 
others an exposition of the methods by which his skill was acquired. The 
result is this original manual of "Hitting vs. Missing." We term it orig- 
inal, because, as the chapters will show, the author was self-taught; the 
expedients and devices adopted and the forms of practice followed were 
his own. This then may be termed the Hammond system of shooting; and 
as it was successful in his own experience, the publishers are confident that, 
being here set forth simply and intelligibly, it will prove not less effective 
with others. 



The Modern Shotgun. 

By W. W. Greener. Price, $i.oo. 

There is scarcely any one whose utterances with regard to shotguns and 
rifles are entitled to as much weight as Mr. Greener's, for he has been 
making these arms for many years. To his great knowledge of them he 
adds a pleasant and clear style in writing, which adds to the value of his 
books. 



The Art of Shooting. 

By Charles Lancaster. Price of Popular Edition, $1.25. 

Author's Preface. — At the special request of many gentlemen who have 
placed themselves in my hands for instruction in the Art of Shooting, I 
have written this treatise. I have endeavored to meet the special require- 
:nents of those who are anxious to become proficient in the art. and who 
have hitherto been unable to obtain, in a precise form, the information 
necessary for studying the first principles of shooting at moving objects. 

I have had the honor of coaching many gentlemen, and have carefully 
studied the points especially requiring attention that have cropped up from 
time to time while giving instruction. I hope that those who favor me by 
studying this treatise may quickly gain the knowledge so essential for the 
making of an average if not brilliant shot. 



Modern American Rifles. 

By A. C. Gould. Illustrated. Cloth, 338 pages. Price, $2.00. 

Contents: Discovery and Principles of a Rifle. Manufacture of Rifle 
Barrels. Forgings. Rifle Sights — Front Open Sights. Rifle Sights — Rear 
Open Sights and Rear Deep Sights. Combination Rifle Sights. Target 
Sights for Rifles. Telescope Rifle Sights. Hunting Rifles. Target Rifles. 
Military Rifles. Pocket Rifles. Position in Rifle Shooting. Aiming, Sight- 
ing, Holding and Firing. Trajectories of Rifle Bullets. What it is Possible 
to do with Rifle. The Manipulation and Care of Rifles. The Proper and 
the Absurd Use of the Rifle. Constructing a Rifle Range. Targets Used 
by American Riflemen. Preparing Rifle Ammunition. The Art of Bullet 
Making. Modern Machinery for Manufacturing Rifles. Round Bullets in 
Modern Rifles. Rules Governing Rifle Shooting. 



Books IntcresiiiKj to Gutuiers. 9 

Trajectories of Hunting Rifles. 

Trajectories of American Hunting Rifles. A series of tests made by the 
"Forest and Stream," at the Creednioor Range, September 26 to Octo- 
ber 19, 1885. Paper, 96 pages. Illustrated. Price, 50 cents. 

A full report of the famous "Forest and Stream" trajectory test. This was 
the most elaborate and careful trial of the trajectories of hunting rifles ever 
undertaken. The test was made wholly with the purpose of determining 
facts; and the results here given embody a vast fund of practical informa- 
tion about the principles of rifle shooting. Thirty-four rifles were tested, 
including the several calibres of the Ballard, Bland, Bullard, Colt, Martin. 
Maynard, muzzle-loaders, Remington, Remington-Hepburn, Sharps, Stev- 
ens, Springfield, Wesson, Whitney-Kennedy and Winchester. The report 
should be in the hands of all rifle shooters, whether their practice be at 
the range or on game. 



A Big Game and Fish Map of Neiv Bruns\rick. 

We have just had prepared by the official draftsman of New Brunswick 
a map of that province, giving the localities where big game — moose and 
caribou — are most abundant, and also the streams in which salmon are 
found, and the rivers and lakes which abound in trout. 

The resources of New Brunswick in the way of game and fish are only 
just beginning to be appreciated, and we are glad to offer to "Forest and 
Stream" readers the first authentic information as to localities where sports 
may be had. The map is printed in colors, on a tough paper, and is en- 
closed in a stovit manila envelope for protection in carrying. Price, $1.00. 



Manual of Taxidermy for Amateurs. 

A Complete Guide in Collecting and Preserving Birds and Animals. By 
C. J. Maynard. Illustrated. New Edition. Price, $1.25. 

Chapter I.— Collecting — Trapping, Etc. Shooting. Procuring Birds. Care 
of Specimens. 

Chapter II. — Skinning Biids — Ordinary ]\Iethod. Exceptions to the Usual 
Method of Skinning. Ascertaining the Sex of Birds. Preserving Skins. 
Other Methods of Preserving Skins. 

Chapter III. — Making Skins — Cleaning Feathers. Making Skins of Long- 
Necked Birds. Making Skins of Herons, Ibises, Etc. Hawks, Owls, 
Eagles, Vultures, Etc. Labeling Specimens. Care of Skins, Cabinets, Etc. 
Measuring Specimens. Making Over Old Skins. 

Chapter IV. — Mounting Birds — Instruments. Mounting from Fresh Spec- 
imens. Crested Birds. Mounting with Wings Spread. Mounting Birds 
for Screens, Etc. Mounting Dried Skins. Prices for Mounting Birds. 
Panel Work. Game Pieces, Etc. 

Chapter V. — Making Stands — Plain Stands. Ornamental Stands. 

Chapter VI. — Collecting Mammals. 

Chapter VII. — Making Skins of Mammals — Skinning Small Mammals. 



10 Books Interesting to Gunners. 

Skinning Large Mammals. Making Skins of Mammals. Measuring Mam- 
mals. 

Chapter VIII. — Mounting Mammals — Small Mammals. Large Mammals. 
Mounting Dried Skins of Mammals. Mounting Mammals without any 
Bones. 

Chapter IX. — Mounting Reptiles, Batrachians and Fishes — Mounting 

Lizards, Alligators, Etc. Mounting Turtles. Mounting Fishes. 



Log Cabins and Cottages. 

How to Build and Furnish Them. By William S. Wicks. New Edition, 
'Snlarged. With 44 plates and many text illustrations. Price, $1.50. 

This work covers the field of building for the woods, from the simplest 
shelters to the most elaborate cottages, cabins and houses. The details and 
directions are very specific and easily comprehended, and the illustrations 
are so numerous and so taking that one will be sure to find in them some- 
thing to his taste. 



Training the Hunting Dog 

For the Field and Field Trials. By B. Waters, author of "Modern 
Training," "Fetch and Carry," etc. Price, $1.50. 

This is a complete manual by the highest authority in this country, and 
will be found an adequate guide for amateurs and professionals. 

Contents: General Principles. Instinct, Reason and Natural Develop- 
ment. Natural Qualities and Characteristics. Punishment and Bad Meth- 
ods. The Best Lessons of Puppyhood. Yard Breaking. "Heel." Point- 
ing. Backing. Roading and Drawing. Ranging. Dropping to Shot and 
Wing. Breaking Shot, Breaking In, Chasing. Retrieving. 



Nursing vs. Dosing. 

A Treatise on the Care of Dogs in Health and Disease. By S. T. Ham- 
mond ("Shadow"), author of "Training vs. Breaking." Cloth, 161 
pages. Price, $1.00. 

This work, from the pen of "Shadow," will have a hearty welcome. It 
comes from one who writes from full knowledge. "The results of mere than 
fifty years of experience are here given," writes the author, "and I assure 
the reader that no course of conduct is advised, no treatment recommended, 
no remedy prescribed, that has not been thoroughly tried and tested by 
the writer and is beU^ved to be entirely trustworthy in every respect." 









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